Introduction:
Engagement of employees is a buzzword today amongst the HR fraternity.
How about engagement of interested parties (preferred term) also known as stakeholders (admitted term) in business?
Interested party or Stakeholder is a person or organization that can affect, be affected by, or perceive to be affected by any decision or activity of an organization.
Interested parties like employees, owners or promoters are an integral part of an organization.
External interested parties are share holders, bankers, suppliers, customers, government legal agencies, society etc.
These stakeholders share a common interest in the purpose of the organization and in its success. This does not mean, however, that all their interests regarding the organization will be the same.
Engagement of interested parties:
If we look at a machine that has many gears, then we understand that unless all the gears are engaged, the machine will not work efficiently, effectively and be productive.
By same token, when we look at a business, unless all the interested parties are engaged appropriately, we cannot get the desired output that satisfies all the interested parties.
Engaging gears are made to match each other, so that they can get perfectly engaged. Similarly, organization must match expectations of each and every interested party and generate a collective goodwill.
If there is no lubrication, the gears would soon wear out affecting the performance; likewise the engaging interested parties must have a lubrication of trust, faith and safeguarding each other’s interest and truly become partners in progress. This goes beyond public relations.
Stakeholder engagement is an activity undertaken to create opportunities for dialogue between an organization and one or more of its stakeholders with the aim of providing an informed basis for the organization decisions, to satisfy their expectations and to increase transparency of its decisions and activities.
Stakeholder engagement can take many forms. It can be initiated by an organization or it can begin as a response by an organization to one or more stakeholders.
Stakeholder engagement should be interactive and is intended to provide opportunities for stakeholders' views to be heard. The essential feature is that it involves two-way communication.
However, the organization should take initiative and strive to create an appropriate environment to make itself worthy of engagement, so that interested parties look forward to get engaged with the organization. This happens when their interest is addressed.
Concept of High level structure (HLS):
In order to bring parity in the structure, for businesses using more than one management systems like ISO 9001:2015 (QMS), ISO 14000:2015 (EMS), ISO 22000:2018 (FSMS) etc, and to make life easier, the new version of ISO standards follows the High Level Structure (HLS).
These standards now include a different approach to understanding risk not only by addressing risk-based thinking on an operational level, but also on an organisational level.
Context of organization:
In High Level Structure, in order to derive benefits, it is mandatory to define the organization before we move ahead, in terms of –
1.What is the purpose of organization?
2.What is the strategy formulated to achieve the purpose? and
3.What are the intended outputs?
Once these things are defined, the next step would be to identify internal and external issues that would hamper the purpose of organization and how the organization would mitigate threats. Both positive and negative factors and conditions are considered.
The next step would be to address expectations of interested parties with a view to engage them.
Employees are one of the interested parties. The organization should create such an environment that the work attracts them and they are “in love” with their work.
Work should not be imposed on them. (We come across some industries to fulfil this aspect)
By same token, interested parties must be attracted to get engaged with the organization.
Because these interests can be affected by an organization, a relationship with the organization is created.
To identify stakeholders an organization should ask itself the following questions:
·To whom does the organization have legal obligations?
·Who might be positively or negatively affected by the organization's decisions or activities?
·Who is likely to express concerns about the decisions and activities of the organization?
·Who has been involved in the past when similar concerns needed to be addressed?
·Who can help the organization address specific impacts?
·Who can affect the organization's ability to meet its responsibilities?
·Who would be disadvantaged if excluded from the engagement?
·Who in the value chain is affected?
Caution - An organization should not neglect engaging stakeholders merely because they are silent.
Objectives of a business organization ought to be:
1.To earn and maximise profits through continuous improvement in performance (Efficiency),
2.To earn and maximize goodwill through better quality of products and services (Effectiveness),
3.To be a step ahead of our competitors (Leadership), and
4.To fulfil societal obligations (Social responsibilities – least focussed)
ISO 26000:2010 provides guidance on social responsibility for the organizations –
Different stakeholders have various and sometimes competing interests. For example, community residents' interests could include the positive impacts of an organization, such as employment, as well as the negative impacts of the same organization, such as pollution.
An organization's performance in relation to the society in which it operates and to its impact on the environment has become a critical part of measuring its overall performance and its ability to continue operating effectively.
The perception and reality of an organization's performance on social responsibility can influence, among other things:
·Its competitive advantage;
·Its reputation;
·Its ability to attract and retain workers or members, customers, clients or users;
·The maintenance of employees' morale, commitment and productivity;
·The view of investors, owners, donors, sponsors and the financial community; and
·Its relationship with companies, governments, the media, suppliers, peers, customers and the community in which it operates.
Society's expectations are also found in laws and regulations, widely accepted social or cultural expectations and established standards or best practices regarding specific matters.
Partners in progress:
Now a day we come across terminologies like knowledge partner, media partner, legal partner, financial partner and so on.
When interested parties are engaged, they work as partners in progress to generate a win – win situation.
Some people may think that this approach is idealistic, but moving in this direction would definitely be beneficial to the organizations and is need of the day.
