Tag Archives: Abu Dhabi Sustainability Group

Make a New Year’s Resolution for your company and go volunteer in 2014

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Volunteering will benefit you, your employees and your business more than you may imagine (image source - www.zmetravel.com)

Volunteering will benefit you, your employees and your business more than you may imagine (image source – http://www.zmetravel.com)

You’re finished with the festive period, the time of year when we have a tendency to overindulge. Now, having seen in the new year, most of us will have made a number of resolutions for our own betterment. But if you’re thinking of a way to make a difference in 2014, why not take a step forward and make a resolution for your company and community?

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gaining a foothold among businesses across the region and one method that all businesses, both large and small, can adopt is to volunteer their time to support local charitable organisations.

There’s a misconception among business owners that volunteering or other forms of CSR is the preserve of large corporations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Giving back by donating your time and expertise to your community can be beneficial to you, your staff and business for many reasons. Not only can volunteering help your community and create a shared sense of achievement among your employees, but giving back can even help your business grow in way that you may not expect. Here’s how:

Volunteering can broaden your experience

Volunteering provides an opportunity to work on something different, with new people in a new place for a new cause. The experiences are not only personally rewarding, but you may and your staff will develop new skills and thinking from the not-for-profit sector that may benefit your own business. When you volunteer for the right reasons to give back to the community, you’ll not only develop new perspectives but you’ll also become more of an empathetic, well-rounded leader and be able to bring these skills and experiences back to bear on your own goals and those of your business.

Your employee morale will improve

Giving to the community has significant benefits for employee satisfaction. Studies by London in 2010 found that 94 per cent of companies had found that volunteering positively impacted employee morale. Volunteering allows your staff to give back to their communities, learn new skills and participate in causes that many of them may passionately believe in, such as the environment, good health and childcare. Volunteering has been found to boost employee health as well as their morale.

Doing well is good for your business reputation too

As a business owner, no one will know better than you that your actions impact your business reputation. Giving back to the local community will have positive effect on your brand. The more that you become part of your local community, the faster your reputation as a business that cares will grow. Volunteering helps your company show that you are empathetic and that you do understand the needs and concerns of local communities.

Develop new relationships and strengthen existing ones

There’s no better way to develop and maintain good relationships than working together with others for a good cause. Getting out there and volunteering will enable you to meet new people who you may not otherwise meet. Even if these relationships don’t initially seem relevant to you and your business, the power of networking will mean that you’ll have a group of individuals outside of your usual business circles to consult with and give you different perspectives.

If you haven’t ever volunteered before and don’t know where to start, there are a number of organisations and bodies that can advise you. For companies based in Dubai, the best place to start is the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and its Engage team that already has a strong connection with most of Dubai’s charitable organisations. The Engage team may be able to point you and your business in the right direction as to how and where to start. The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and the Engage team can be reached at responsiblebusiness@dubaichamber.com.

For companies in Abu Dhabi, the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Group is a governmental organisation that promotes sustainability best practises and would be best placed to provide similar advice as to where to start in the UAE’s capital. You can contact them at contact@adsg.ae.

For business owners in Saudi Arabia, your best resource may be the Ministry of Social Affairs, which has a database of all locally registered charities in the kingdom. The ministry has offices in most of the kingdom’s cities, so do check out its website at http://www.mosa.gov.sa.

Volunteering doesn’t have to take a tremendous amount of time or energy and yet giving back can be one of the most rewarding things you do over 2014 for yourself and your employees. Get started today and make a difference not only to yourself, but to your local community as well.

This piece was first published on the Kipp Report.

Who delivers the message is just as important as the message itself – a lesson from Abu Dhabi

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Now, if you were to present to these people what would you think of wearing? (image source: The New York Times)

Many of us in the communications industry spend so long on developing the message itself that we often forget about the impact of who is going to deliver the message. A striking example of this and one of the most striking examples of mismatching the what with the who dates back to 2006, when Dubai’s DP World lost control of six ports in the US in part due to a lack of understanding how to present to a specific audience. For those who remember the episode the highlight was UAE nationals dressed in kandouras presenting to US officials, which didn’t help to assuage American lawmakers that the ports would not be a security threat in the hands of an Arab-owned company.

A news item this week caught my eye. It was an interesting article about a subject that needs more airtime, that of energy conservation and electricity subsidies. I’m going to quote from the article, which was published in the English-daily Gulf News, below.

When you switch off a lamp or an electric gadget when not needed, it is not merely minimising your own expense, but helps the nation implement more welfare measures for its people, including building more schools and hospitals.

Abu Dhabi Government spent Dh4 billion on subsidies on oil that used for energy generation last year, a senior official said here yesterday.

If energy consumption is minimised, the oil used for power generation can be exported and its revenue can be used for constructing schools etc, said Robert Bradley, Senior Policy Advisor — Climate Change, Directorate of Energy and Climate Change at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He was speaking at a discussion meeting in the capital… It was Abu Dhabi Sustainability Group’s sixth Hiwar Session (the Arabic word for dialogue), a public event, which aimed to shed light on current economic, social and environmental issues and its implications for sustainability in Abu Dhabi.

Let’s have a look at the message, which in itself is fascinating. Abu Dhabi is spending unnecessary money on power generation, money that could be spent on infrastructure, on public services, education or healthcare. All good so far. However, who is speaking and to which audience?

We have a Westerner, an expat talking about nation-building. Okay, but which group(s) would have have the most interest in looking long term? Who uses public services such as national schools and hospitals? It’d be a safe assumption to say UAE nationals. And which consumer demographic uses the most electricity per head (take a guess… yes, it’s locals).

The question would be, why isn’t a UAE national delivering the message, in Arabic? And why is an English-language paper reporting on this rather than the Arabic press? Surely a UAE national would have more gravitas and clout in spreading this message to his or her fellow citizens, in a language and dialect that they understand. There’d be less opportunity for misunderstandings and misgivings.

We’ve often got to think beyond the message to the messenger him or herself. If we don’t then we’re going to miss the chance to make the impact that we’re hoping for. And trust me, we’re not going to be able to rely on oil and gas in this part of the world forever.