CSR Through Employee Engagement in Events and Outbound Learning (Adventure Sports) for Sustainable Business Environment

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility has gained a lot of momentum in the India after the advent of globalization and liberalization in the country. CSR is not new to India, whereas it has been the trend here that large business houses invest into communities for social transformation but the results by large are yet to be sees as the POVERTY reduction/alleviation measures have not made a mark due to large disparities existing even now. The question is: Do businesses in India need a tag of “CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY” added to the cart of their sustainable reporting? Yes, when businesses need to survive and thrive and make their profits. But CSR, as a strategic intervention is here to stay rather than only doling out cheques to the underprivileged social sector. Especially in management education, Business Ethics and CSR is a part of the curriculum but the relevance is yet to see. It strikes students only when recruiters make it a point to ask the students whether they have an exposure for CSR. Hence CSR as a subject needs to become mandatory in management education where corporates recruit their potential employees. Employee Engagement as a CSR tool becomes an important wagon for corporates to pursue their CSR activities in the community. Every employee who becomes involved with the corporate CSR takes pride in claiming that he/she on his/her part has contributed towards community development. In addition to hard core social activity, if employees can also involve in undertaking activities like “ADVENTURE SPORTS” then the employee develops commitment towards protecting and conserving the “ENVIRONMENT” as part of CSR. Here we refer to “ Employee Engagement” as to participation of employees in CSR activities of the company or in other terms “ VOLUNTEERING” This paper explores the relation between CSR and Employee Engagement activities for sustainable business, employees as volunteers for NGO’s, projects undertaken by employees individually, etc