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A Close er Look At Employers’ CSR Dutie es investm
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Of the four
f dimens sions, public listed com
mpanies had d the best
explore
es the corporrate conscien
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“Corporrate Social Responsibil
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ysia 2007 Sttatus
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Puan Maimunah Aminuddin
CSRD: Do
D you hav
ve any commments on the
e Bursa Malaysia
• CSR Dig
gest Editorial
having made CSR reporting
r co
ompulsory for
f listed co
ompanies
1
• Marketplace
since 20
006?
• Transparency
Page
• Workplace
MA: I feel that Bursa Malaysia’s requirement of compulsory CSR reporting an excellent
move. Listed companies are responsible to their share-holders, but they also need to be
accountable for their decisions and actions which affect the general public. As listed
company’s annual reports are readily available for scrutiny, interested parties will be able to
directly access information about the CSR activities of the companies concerned.
Having said that, clearly we must distinguish between CSR reporting and the realities of
business. According to csrinternational.blogspot.com, the company in Malaysia judged to
have the best CSR reporting recently is British American Tobacco - most definitely not a
company which could be said to be socially responsible, in that its product allegedly kills
thousands of persons each year!
In the last eight years, Prof. Mustaffa and his colleagues have published more than a dozen
articles on the subject, and the same number of students have written Masters level case
studies on CSR in different industries in Malaysia. Notwithstanding the academic interest in
the subject, and the Bursa Malaysia requirements on reporting on CSR, which apply to listed
companies, I suspect the average SME doesn’t have an interest in CSR.
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CSR requires employers to treat their internal customers, i.e. employees, ethically.
Complying with the relevant employment laws is a good start but any company which hopes
to boast about its CSR efforts should begin by looking long and hard at how it manages its
employees.
After all, these employees make decisions on behalf of the organization. They cannot be
expected to look after external stakeholders well if they feel themselves to be neglected or
discriminated against by the employer.
Thus, employers who discriminate against some employees because they belong to a
particular racial or religious group, gender, age group, or simply because they are different
in some way to the average worker are certainly behaving in a way which is the very
antithesis of corporate social responsibility. Many employers do not realize that their failure
to take proactive steps to prevent sexual harassment is a form of discrimination as well as
evidence of lack of caring about safety at the workplace.
The government has been trying to get employers to formally adopt the Code of Practice on
Preventing and Eradicating Sexual Harassment at the Workplace. Statistics provided by the
Ministry of Human Resources show that only a tiny percentage of employers have done so.
Of course, it is possible that many socially responsible employers have, in fact, introduced
appropriate procedures and practices to eliminate sexual harassment, but have not officially
3
Many strategies to improve employees’ work-life balance cost little or nothing but have the
potential to bring about good returns. For example, flexible working hours, including
flexibility of where work is to be done for those whose jobs allow this (tele-working and so
on) can bring about major gains to both employers as well as employees. ◊
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