Employees leaving? Customers complaining? Overwhelmed by change? Сan’t get the right people? Department against department? Employees fighting among each other? Paying money for lawsuits with neighbours?		We will present arguments for why fairness and common learning with customers, employees and neighbours is important.   We will demonstrate how you can benefit from improving your management of relations with customers, employees and neighbours and how it can lead to tangible economic results.     We will present you interesting cases of businesses just like yours, who gained from responsibility.     Last but not least we will demonstrate a simple step by step way how to improve your activities and attitude.

There is a way of managing to stop the trouble and take the opportunities of cooperation: The fair and learning business. 

It is simple: by applying the golden rule of treating employees, customers and neighbours like we ourselves want to be treated, we build trust.

Trust is the prerequisite of solving problems and communicating that your business is a fair partner to its customers, employees and neighbours.

Many small businesses know that. They are good partners, but often they fail to make the most of their activities.

Big companies on the other hand use their positive activities to promote their own company. This approach is called “Corporate” Social Responsibility.

Since most businesses are no “corporations” let us just call it “business responsibility”.

A lot of companies show that actively managing their relationship with customers, employees and neighbours can help their business to prosper also economically:

Examples

There are many companies who already implemented the social responsible activities in their daily business and won.

Medium sized enterprise “Plunges Jonis” (Lithuania), which activity related with railway and roads repair and maintenance, believes that professional and competent employees are the core key of success. Therefore it tries to provide continuous training and education for them.

The enterprise sponsorships the bachelor and master degree studies of its employees, the re-skilling of employees, etc. Business trips and meetings with specialists from other countries and companies are organised, seeking to ensure the continuous development of employee qualification. The regular learning is combined with various wellness programs. Employees and their families have the opportunity to travel around the country, to visit museums, galleries only for the symbolical fee. The company organizes a Christmas party and the feast of St John for its employees every year. Employees are also being greeted for wedding day, various anniversaries or birthdays. There is a social support for employees with social problems. The continuous learning not only has the impact on employees motivation, but also raises the company‘s competitiveness.

This looks like big investment. What are the gains?

The active performance in the local communities allows contributing to its general well-being. This creates a positive environment for the business. The approach of caring and training creates the image of a very attractive employer. Plunges Jonis is able to attract the best and most productive employees. The company notices the better motivation of employees, bigger loyalty and commitment, which turns to smaller employee fluctuation. Therefore team productivity rises continuously. There are fewer costs for training new employees over and over again. 

Mari Vila (Romania) is a Romanian construction company which has developed some Social Responsibility activities, such as:  trainings for employees regarding occupational health and safety (welfare at work,  better conditions for the work place) and environment (involving the  employees to collect the generated waste selective).  The company’s  concern for community is to make donations towards foster homes and  asylums and also to give the needed support to the employees,   whenever is necessary.

Euroblinds, a company set up in Cyprus active in the area of trade and promotion of Internal & External Shading Systems have decided to set aside 1% of their profits as a donation to the anti-cancer society. The reason given for this initiative is that the company's activities in the protection of buildings and houses from the sun using sun-blinds are related to skin cancer. They also contribute to the creation and maintenance of public parks/playgrounds for children. Finally they place great emphasis in the continuous training of their employees.

The Spanish foodstuffs company Harineras Villamayor is a medium-sized enterprise that utilises a specific model of employee participation. Moreover, it has a particular interest in the environmental impact of its own activities. In this context, it adheres to the European Quality Management model, and it has collaborated in the elaboration of an “eco-efficiency toolkit”. At a European level, and it is part of an international network of information and exchange on sustainability and social responsibility.

The company „EkoReverss“ (Latvia) took care of some 15 to 20 homeless persons, to wash them, arrange passports and get them legal job; another company “Latvijas Finieris” (Latvia) arranged 4 days working week instead of firing 20% of staff.

These examples show the simple human relations, it does not take many efforts, but creates the priceless value – good reputation.

It takes ages to build the reputation, and just a few seconds are enough to destroy it…

In small and medium business the economical relations correspond to the human relations. The fair and learning business (the business social responsibility) can improve this relation without much additional effort. What it takes is some attention to the problem and the readiness to lay out a systematic policy of responsible management and to follow through on it.