Corporate Social Responsibility Practices in Pakistan needs radical changes
Part 1:
Recently, I happened to receive a call from a social sector organization, asking me to file nomination for their upcoming awards about my company’s CSR activities. Well, I have to confess that by profession, I am just an academic, researcher and a trainer (boring right..? Not really), but I never own an active running company on my name. So when this guy called and asked for nomination,
it was incongruous that he didn’t know that I own any company or not. He never even asked me about it (Though, later the confusion got cleared as one of my close friends had registered my name to attend their award ceremony/conference as I am doing my PhD in CSR and therefore, it was very relevant to me).
While on the phone, I asked this guy that how does this whole process work? What are the criteria to win the award? How well should my company perform to be able to win it? Any SOPs that they will verify/measure? And most importantly,how long would it take to shortlist and announce the winners? Actually, there was very short time left between the actual events of award distribution/conference, therefore, this last question seemed reasonable to ask. He explained that I need to fill a nomination form and send it back along with a certain amount of fee.
Ok…! Let me quote it…! 50,000 PKR…! Happy…! And the time to announce the award winners…! I asked again. His answer was, “Sir, if you complete this process today (filling the nomination form and make payment), you will get a good news tomorrow”.
Hurrah…! I screamed. What happened, Sir? The phone guy asked. I said nothing; apologized to him for keep extracting information without owning a company. The guy seemed nice, didn’t mind at all, just hanged up the phone nicely.
BUT then I thought to myself… WAIT A MINUTE…! What…? Tomorrow…? How come…? How can they decide the winners in less than 24 hours without actually verifying the details of my claims etc.? And then tons of similar kind of questions started exploding in my mind. This is wrong, totally wrong…! I said to myself. How would they know that some organizations are even engaged in CSR related programs or not? And yet they have their awards ready for them, just waiting for the payments to be cleared. Baloney, I said…! I know what you guys are thinking of me.
It reminded me of a friend who always tells me that I am too INNOCENT for this world…! And that I can never be a businessman if I behave the same way. I know what he actually means…? In a nicer and friendly way, he calls me
STUPID…!
Note: Part 2 is coming soon… Stay connected.
Part 1:
Recently, I happened to receive a call from a social sector organization, asking me to file nomination for their upcoming awards about my company’s CSR activities. Well, I have to confess that by profession, I am just an academic, researcher and a trainer (boring right..? Not really), but I never own an active running company on my name. So when this guy called and asked for nomination,
it was incongruous that he didn’t know that I own any company or not. He never even asked me about it (Though, later the confusion got cleared as one of my close friends had registered my name to attend their award ceremony/conference as I am doing my PhD in CSR and therefore, it was very relevant to me).
While on the phone, I asked this guy that how does this whole process work? What are the criteria to win the award? How well should my company perform to be able to win it? Any SOPs that they will verify/measure? And most importantly,how long would it take to shortlist and announce the winners? Actually, there was very short time left between the actual events of award distribution/conference, therefore, this last question seemed reasonable to ask. He explained that I need to fill a nomination form and send it back along with a certain amount of fee.
Ok…! Let me quote it…! 50,000 PKR…! Happy…! And the time to announce the award winners…! I asked again. His answer was, “Sir, if you complete this process today (filling the nomination form and make payment), you will get a good news tomorrow”.
Hurrah…! I screamed. What happened, Sir? The phone guy asked. I said nothing; apologized to him for keep extracting information without owning a company. The guy seemed nice, didn’t mind at all, just hanged up the phone nicely.
BUT then I thought to myself… WAIT A MINUTE…! What…? Tomorrow…? How come…? How can they decide the winners in less than 24 hours without actually verifying the details of my claims etc.? And then tons of similar kind of questions started exploding in my mind. This is wrong, totally wrong…! I said to myself. How would they know that some organizations are even engaged in CSR related programs or not? And yet they have their awards ready for them, just waiting for the payments to be cleared. Baloney, I said…! I know what you guys are thinking of me.
It reminded me of a friend who always tells me that I am too INNOCENT for this world…! And that I can never be a businessman if I behave the same way. I know what he actually means…? In a nicer and friendly way, he calls me
STUPID…!
Note: Part 2 is coming soon… Stay connected.
