As we observe with increasing concern the rising tide of unemployment—for example: 18% in Spain, 40% in Bosnia and Herzegovina, close to 10% in the USA, and close to 95% in Zimbabwe (CIA factbook)—and think about ways forward, we may find it useful to keep in mind the following thoughts from a statement of the Bahai International Community which place this question in a broader context:

In all policies aimed at tackling unemployment and providing decent and secure work for all, the conception of work needs to transcend just the economic dimension and encompass also the human and social purpose that employment fulfills.

Work needs to be seen not only as a means to securing an individual and family’s basic needs, but also as a channel to developing one’s craft, refining one’s character, and contributing to the welfare and progress of society. Work, no matter how humble and simple, when performed with an attitude of service, is a means to contribute to the advancement of our communities, countries and global society.

Within this context, we can start to see the masses of unemployed not only as a ‘problem’ but as a ‘resource’ to be tapped into in order to achieve national priorities and fulfil the Millennium Development Goals.

We hope that this work paradigm can expand the vision of workers, the private sector, governments, and other agencies; and that this broad vision of work can encompass all policies which are adopted at national and international level to address the issue of full employment and decent work for all.

(Here for more documents from the BIC.) Are you or your workplace dealing with the economic recession in ways that maintain the decency of work and strive for the dignity of the human being? Do share.

Make It Meaningful Conference Explores How our Daily Work can Contribute to the Well Being of Civilisation and Calls for Speakers as the European Baha’i Business Forum EBBF Celebrates its 20 Year Anniversary

The European Bahá’í Business Forum, announces a Call for Speakers as it opens registration for its 20th Annual Conference, celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Paris, France – July 27, 2010 –EBBF (www.ebbf.org) the European Bahá’í Business Forum, announces a Call for Speakers as it opens registration for its 20th Annual Conference, and the second Make It Meaningful conference in a series. The three day event will be held at the deport Conference Centre in Nijmegen, The Netherlands September 23 to 26, 2010. The conference aims to support participants who want to learn to create workplaces which contribute to the well being of employees, other stakeholders and the communities within which they operate.

For more information click here to VISIT THE EVENT’s WEBSITE.

“These values—ethical business practices, social responsibility, partnership of women and men, non-adversarial decision making through consultation—are in fact the ‘road map’ for business today no matter what its size.”

In the latest edition of Inspire we have a casual conversation with EBBF co-founder Ezzat (Eric) Zahrai, who looks back on the 20 years since EBBF’s beginnings and shares his vision on the forum’s core values, modern business and the future of humankind. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

EBBF: With the present economic recession, the stark disparities between the reality of sub-prime lending and investor bonuses, the Euro under attack, what would you say is one of the most pressing issues business has to resolve in order to live up to EBBF’s vision to be a force for the ‘well-being’ of humankind?

Ezzat: Well, first of all there are quite a number of experts who are working on these issues and could say things in a much more authoritative way than me. However, one thing that comes to my mind is that one cannot solve the problems of today while continuing to use the same elements which created those problems in the first place. We have to have something otherwise they will persist. What we need, I can summarize in one word: Trustworthiness. This might sound to some like wishful thinking, but it is what is missing, and not just in business, but in every aspect of human life—in our relationships with our co-workers, with our neighbors, and of course with all humankind.

So what we must do now is focus on how to create trustworthiness, so that it emerges from the realm of utopia into reality.

Don’t miss out on this and nine other interesting job offers—from within and without EBBF’s network—in the latest edition of EBBF’s own Inspire magazine.

IT & Communications Coordinator – CSR Europe – Brussels, Belgium

CSR Europe, the leading European business network for corporate social responsibility, is seeking an experienced and motivated IT & Communications Coordinator to join our team in Brussels, Belgium.

The ideal candidate should have around 1-3 years professional experience and a strong interest in communications, information technology and working in the field of CSR and sustainable development. In addition, he/she must have good organisational and research skills as well as excellent communication and people skills. Knowledge of European institutions and issues is an asset.

The successful candidate will coordinate a number of activities contributing to the organisation’s communication activities and service delivery to members, more specifically:

Ensure the day-to-day content management and maintenance of CSR Europe’s website
Contribute to the further development of online tools and keep current with relevant communication and technology developments
Coordinate the use, maintenance and further development of CSR Europe’s customer relationship and knowledge management tools in cooperation with relevant staff members and outside vendors
Participate in the creation, production and distribution of existing and new communication tools, such as newsletters, publications, presentations, videos and other materials
Account management for a portfolio of corporate and national partner accounts, i.e. act as a primary contact point for a group of members, inform them on opportunities for engagement, assist with information requests and help them connect with other members of the network
Facilitation of business & multi-stakeholder working groups on specific CSR topics
Representing the organisation in external fora and towards stakeholders (European institutions and others)
The position requires:

Experience with website content management
Experience with CRM/database management
Knowledge and interest in online and information technology
Strong writing and editing skills
Attention to detail
Strong interpersonal skills and a client-driven attitude
Ability to multi-task and perform diverse tasks as needed
Ability to work in a small, dynamic multi-cultural organisation
Excellent English (with at least knowledge of one another European language)
The location for this position will be Brussels. The candidate will receive an initial 1-year contract with the possibility of extension.

To apply, please send a cover letter with your CV by 15 July 2010 to the attention of Laura Maanavilja, Manager, Communications, to pc(at)csreurope.org, fax +32 (0)2 502 84 58 or telephone             +32 (0)2 541 1610       .

About CSR Europe: www.csreurope.org.

Closing Date: 15 July 2010

Click on the image below to enjoy the latest edition of EBBF’s e-magazine INSPIRE
Stories, ideas, values, opportunities for action and meaningful job offers for you, from EBBF members.

Serge Thill, coach for gender diversity in Luxembourg, used EBBF’s Linked-In network to request help with a workshop he had been asked to give on Diversity for AIESEC in France. The very set of responses he received speaks clearly of the power of diverse ideas focused on a single point. After the successful workshop based on different ideas shared, Serge shared the following reflections.

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The question whether diversity really useful has been one of the topics of my workshop.

“Diversity is not an advantage it is a complication. Diversity is a source of misunderstandings and of tensions between people. It is costly in terms of energy and time to manage diversity. The manager’s job is to maximize results while using resources in the most parsimonious way. To distill simplicity out of complexity. Running a company is complex enough as it is; no need to add more complications for ideological reasons.”

Isn’t that what we learned in business school? The logical conclusion is: we hire no women, we hire no foreigners, and we avoid disagreement. We have a clear hierarchy and clear allocation of responsibilities. Everyone knows what he (!) has to do and does it. It’s as simple as that.

Or is it?

I watched a company being run this way from the start. The founder had very clear ideas about what needed to be done and he hired people he trusted to perform according to his needs. The more someone was like him, the better. It worked like a charm. The company was set up with very minimal resources and no debt, and it went from 3 to 30 people in three years.

Then the first problems showed up: difficulties to hire additional talent, lack of motivation despite brilliant results, difficulties to crack the limits of the initial market definition, difficulties to innovate, failure to identify a compelling mission, blaming of outside factors for internal problems. The company started losing money.

Luckily, the founder was open-minded and daring enough to recognize the problem. Instead of cutting costs and trying to stay on course, he started hiring people speaking strange languages, women, people who knew nothing of the initial markets (but lots of other markets), people who had different values and ideas. He let go of the top down, authoritarian approach and gave his new managers room to succeed. Of course, incomprehension, strong opposition and tensions within the initial management team were the results. Some had or chose to go.

They are two years into the new culture now. It is still difficult and expensive, but the downward trend is broken, new strategies show very promising results and the company is set to resume a course of success. The ultimate challenge for them will be to consolidate a culture of diversity and inclusion.

Diversity in itself is not enough. When many people do many different things in different ways and with different values, and they do so each in their own corner, or worse, creating opposing fractions, then diversity is more a liability than an asset. But when an organization succeeds in including diverse cultures, ideas, experience, knowledge, talents … under a common mission, with shared objectives that everyone feels enthused and empowered to contribute to through their own individuality and their own specific talents, without feeling like being judged for their being different from the majority, when mistakes are considered as opportunities to learn, when different talents and innovative contributions are being celebrated, then the organization starts tapping into the wealth of diversity.

***

To follow this and other conversations on EBBF’s linked-in page, click here.

image from treehugger.com

In a refreshing display of walking their (environmental) talk, the British government has refused to build new runways around London in order to curb ‘binge flying’. They are going against the current when most countries continue to build new runways, Britain has stood out. As reported in a New York Times article, “Peder Jensen, a transportation specialist at theEuropean Environment Agency in Copenhagen, said that as far as he knew, Britain “is the only country that had made a conscious decision based on climate considerations.””

Not without controversy, mind you, conflicting, say some, with the dominant political touchstone, economic growth: “This is a new government that claimed to be business friendly, but their first move was to eliminate one of the best growth opportunities for London and the U.K. and British companies,” said Steve Lott, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association. “We’ve run into a shortsighted political decision that will have terrible economic consequences.”

While EBBF’s efforts mostly concern assisting individuals in developing their capacity to translate their values into positive daily actions, we fully appreciate the role other actors play. For the significant restructuring of society towards the well-being of all its peoples is a dynamic, centuries-long task that involves a synergistic participation of individuals, communities, business and governance, among others. Regardless of the decision’s ultimate impact, it is nonetheless quite encouraging to see government take a bold stand, aligning policy with their stated values.

In a time when business concerns generally trump environmental action, this kind of decision must be recognized and lauded—and encouraged. Any more stories of this sort? Any action that you or we can do to foment it?

From WWF UK’s website:

Carrie brainstorming with work colleagues on how technology can help communities lessen their carbon footprint and improve social factors

“Some things we do don’t make sense from a standard ROI analysis, but reflect our values.”

In an upcoming interview in EBBF’s Inspire e-magazine, Carrie Freeman talks about her current position as head of the Sustainability Strategist office at a large semiconductor manufacturing company, including developing a new investment model that takes into account environmental and social factors for making business decisions.  In the following excerpt, Carrie explains how this new investment model is being developed and used.

***

EBBF: In the first piece you wrote for our blog you mentioned one of the major challenges you face in your position is convincing some people that sustainability makes business sense in a number of ways. And in this context you mentioned that you are creating “a social return on investment framework to be applied in situations where a standard economic model would not deem the project worthy”. Could you say more about this framework?

Carrie: We’re in the second phase in the development of this framework. The first phase is an analysis of sustainability practices based on traditional Return on Investment formulae, looking at potential revenue growth versus production cost. In other words, how much will it cost us to implement these ‘greener’ practices and how much can we expect to profit from them. But this phase alone isn’t really adequate in a new era. The second phase, which is where we’re at right now, is starting to look at situations and apply calculations to help determine what is the broader business value that such sustainability actions bring in regards to employee engagement and retention, license to operate, risk management, impacts to supply chain, benefits to customers, and benefits to your brand. Although these things are less quantifiable, we’re trying to include these metrics in our decision making. We recognize that this itself is a stepping stone, after which we can move on to the third phase of the framework: social return on investment, to the societal value that accrues from such action. Then we would look at how this is contributing to the community, to an impact on society, to improving ecosystems. We’re not there yet (hardly anybody is), but that’s where I’m hoping to see the company evolve. That’s our long-term vision.

One encouraging aspect about our work is that it is primarily being promoted by financial staff from across the organization—not by sustainability people—and so I think it will be better received by the company overall. I think it’s brilliant that they are the ones who are doing it. They’ve found that this is one area where there isn’t a lot of info out there for them to use; it isn’t something we can just purchase on the shelf somewhere and plug in. So they’ve taken it on as a challenge, and are working with academia, investment analysts, and other companies in order to find relevant studies and data to build this new framework. 

***

If you liked this, click on for more insightful and inspiring interviews in past issues of Inspire.

Jean Pierre Méan has contributed a great deal to EBBF, not least producing the EBBF publication and knowledge centre titled:
On Bribery and Corruption – Fighting to  restores trust

Apart from being an active EBBF member he is also the vice president of Transparency International in Switzerland and in another of his roles as President of the Caux Initiatives for Change now offers a great opportunity to this blog’s readership with the program of the Conference “Trust and Integrity in the Global Economy” which will be held in Caux from 12 to 17 August.

The subtitle to this very interesting event offers a glimpse of the scope and conversations that you could enjoy if you decide to attend:

Exploring Ways to Help Create  a Just and Equitable Global  Economy

If you decide to attend you will also enjoy there EBBF presentations in a quite beautiful environment in the Swiss Alps.
You can download/read the full program in PDF format clicking to the event’s website here.