3. CSR in Taiwan
3.2. How CSR is Measured
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offer volunteering leaves to encourage large variety of community service. For environment, these companies all promote energy saving. Standard Chartered even stops providing paper cups for guests due to environment concerns. Prudential turned off all the light during lunch break to save unnecessary use of energy.
When interviewing the foreign financial institutions in Taiwan, they all stated clearly that corporate social responsibility is not the duty of public relations departments nor is only about charity. It is a good cause that embedded in every element of the companies and is represented by every employee. For example, diversification and inclusion employment means how every employee are evaluated and recruited at the same standard regardless to their sexuality, gender, race, family status and age. This has to be supported by all employees rather than a few managements who determined the talent acquisition policies. The employees have to understand and support the idea before it can be entirely implemented.
3.2. How CSR is Measured
Besides, these companies have a clear key performance index (KPI) in measuring the effect of their social responsibility. It is worth noticing that the KPI they are referring to is the output of the activities or initiatives. It could include the people benefited, such as the 41 million people reached by “Seeing is Believing”, the global program of Standard Chartered, or the 450 local projects to helps the NGO for community improvement supported by the partnership of United Way and Citi Taiwan, or the 15,000 hours of employee volunteering from HSBC. The KPI has to be set, particular for those projects seeking for capital investment, at the early stage of planning to assure the capital can go well to the beneficiaries.
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Some banks such as Standard Chartered would also evaluate if the employees are having the same set of value to the company, which the value about corporate social responsibility is already embedded to their aspirations. The KPI can also be found among every staff. Standard Chartered calculated the total employee volunteering leaves annually and monitoring the coverage of staff volunteering among the group. HSBC also has the same measure. Reason of counting the amount of volunteering is to track if the employees are having work life balance.
For some financial institutions, the KPI puts on the beneficiary. Citi’s financial education program track the progress of their trainees about the financial management skill. This is checked by their book keeping behaviors and usage of wealth management tools including saving account, credit card and insurance.
By setting up the KPI in both quantitative and qualitative aspects, these financial institutions not only can monitor the cash flow of the program, as well as to make sure these activities and initiatives well aligned with social expectation and public’s need.
Looking at the financial institutions in Taiwan, these companies have their own interpretation on corporate social responsibility. As most of the such as China Trust Commercial Bank Financial Holdings, Cathy United Financial Holdings, Taishin Financial Holdings, etc, are listed in Taiwan Stock Exchange, which are obliged to the article about corporate social responsibility on TWSE. When you read the newspaper every day, you would find a lot of reporting in the advertorial pages regarding the charity events of these local corporates.
Comparing to international financial institutions, the corporate social responsibility of local financial institutions are less comprehensive and more event- and regulator-oriented.
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Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), the regulatory body to the finance industry in Taiwan, has been encouraging financial institutions for skill-based volunteering. An official from a local corporates reflected that these local financial corporates tend to spend the least effort in CSR in order to gain the best return. This can also be translated as how most local corporates are operating in Taiwan. The least effort means as least as extra effort to be spent for the event, and the event can leverage their business for the activities. Financial education events for clients’ children are most often seen. These banks, securities houses and insurance companies can invite their staff as volunteer teachers to teach their clients about the product concepts on banking and investments. FSC requires banks or insurance companies not to conduct any sales activities outside banks or offices, though, these corporates are already benefited from a branding effect that these participants are already having impression on the companies offering these activities.
Some large financial institutions also reveal their efforts on social responsibility by the charity funds. China Trust Commercial Banking (CTBC) Financial Holdings, Fubon Financial Holdings, Cathay United Financial Holdings have their own charity funds. These funds mostly donate money to a large array of beneficiary, from victims of natural disasters, to children from under privileged or remote area or students. These funds offer donation based on their applications by individuals or NGOs. The non-profit organizations or non-profit organizations are closely cooperated with these charity funds. Occasionally these charity funds would hold a press event to announce their annually plan or annual results. A NGO told during the interview that these charity funds from financial industry “sometimes are quite dominative in driving the media angles of these press events. They always wish us to endorse their good cause to the public.” A reporter also revealed that sometimes they’ve got pressure
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from the financial institutions on media coverage, particularly from local financial holdings whose management was sued for bribery crimes, is pushing particularly hard on media exposure, together with huge spending on media placement to secure prominent media coverage.
CSR awards are also welcomed by these corporates. Currently there are two key CSR awards in Taiwan, Common Wealth Corporate Citizen Award and Global View CSR awards.
Financial institutions are active participants of these awards. Some of them are also frequent winners of these awards. You can also sees that during the award seasons how these corporates are releasing press releases and media placement in media. A reporter commented that the awards “serve as a marketing tool, especially to the marketing material to clients.”