Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 - (Page 77)

2. Projects are another form of education that enables corporate universities to tackle concrete issues and to seize opportunities for the development of corporate responsibility or citizenship. This is the approach taken by Union Fenosa in Colombia. (See the In Practice sidebar.) Areva University adopted a similar approach when it implemented a long-term program for South African young professionals, engineers and managers in the administrative service, in the framework of the national asgiSA (accelerated and shared growth initiative for South Africa) project. The aim is to help future graduates provide South African organizations with the competencies they need to strengthen the country’s dynamics through better control of major projects. This societal action is targeted at beneﬁciaries who aren’t Areva employees and who represent the next generation of managers in South Africa. At the end of their training, participants are awarded an internationally recognized master diploma that combines academic and practical work in collaboration with the South African government. While Areva has a business interest in this project, it is also important to mention that the company started the program before it had any contracts in South Africa. 3. Educational events are designed to attract attention over a short period to a speciﬁc theme or issue. Conferences may be given by personalities involved in CSR or sustainable development. This took place at the Shinsei Bank, which recruited Professor Wangari Maathai for a conference on the publication of her autobiography, Unbowed, which was translated into Japanese by Yuriko Koike, adviser to the Japanese prime minister. The university can hold exhibitions to sensitize employees and external stakeholders to sustainable development and inform them about the company’s actions in this area. This was organized by the Campus Veolia Environnement, for example. Events can also be organized using intranet or extranet to get everyone to work together on a “D-day” on the subject of responsibility. In short, the entire range of event-based communications can be used in corporate education, and this makes the university more up-to-date and aligned with its “clients.” These are just a few examples. There are others, such as learning activities on developing shared vision and CSR culture, protection of the natural environment or discouraging waste and pollution; leadership learning programs on corporate responsibility, corporate citizenship, sustainable development for all employees; leadership projects on decisionmaking, considering the demands of international rating agencies; voluntary programs; action learning programs in relation with external stakeholders; co- IN PRACTICE UNION FENOSA CORPORATE UNIVERSITY: HOW CSR EDUCATION IMPACTED THE BOTTOM LINE panish energy company Union Fenosa operates in Colombia, where, in 2002, violence in the country had led to the relocation of a large population mass in certain poor neighborhoods located on the outskirts of various cities. Sixty-seven percent of this population lived in dire poverty, and of these, 99 percent weren’t charged for their electricity consumption. There were 300,000 irregular unauthorized cases of power usage — subject to no regulation, quality control or safety measures — with all this causing a very tense social climate owing to a deﬁciency in the quality of service. On Union Fenosa’s part, the outcome resulted in a loss of 21 million euros, 26.6 percent in energy losses and a payment of 78.6 percent in the bill collection. Due to these circumstances, the future survival of Union Fenosa’s companies in Colombia was clearly in jeopardy. In an attempt to solve this problem, Union Fenosa chose to create Mipymes — micro and small companies — that handled the billing and management of community networks in deprived neighborhoods through a percentage of the bill collection. Likewise, diverse training activities were set up in areas such as energy conservation, business management for Mipymes managers, and training for marañeros, or unskilled workers, to become electricians. The estimated cost of this investment has been about 26 million Colombian pesos. The results have been dramatic: Bill payments went up from 78.6 percent to 92.7 percent in 2005, and energy losses decreased from 26.6 percent to 16.7 percent that same year. Also, 78 new jobs within the company, and 1,200 ancillary ones, have been created; the bill payment rate has increased by 65 percent, and 50,000 families have regularized their distribution electricity installations. The main ﬁgures are essentially the same in 2008. This is a medium-term change management process that is not yet complete CLO S – Annick Renaud-Coulon operation with educational systems and academics to build new curricula; transmitting knowledge to schools; education of underprivileged people; and literacy programs. The relation between corporate education and corporate responsibility is in its infancy and will need to be developed with pragmatism, passion and intelligence. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, “As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.” Giving the corporate university or the learning structure the responsibility for educating in CSR and for implementing concrete actions in this area is a very real way of ensuring that this future becomes a reality — which is far from the case today. CLO Annick Renaud-Coulon is the chairman of Paris-based Global Council of Corporate Universities. She can be reached at editor@clomedia.com. Chief Learning Ofﬁcer • December 2008 • www.clomedia.com 77 http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - December 2008

Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 Editor’s Letter Contents Connections Business Impact Best Practices Effectiveness Guest Editorial The Future of Learning CLO Profile Learning Opportunities Embedded in Social Networking ManTech Leverages Knowledge Management Approaches for Social Networking Agility Training for the Learning Organization Creating an Agile Organization With Learning 2.0 2008 Learning In Practice Awards Corporate Social Responsibility: How Can Learning Contribute? Union Fenosa Corporate University: How CSR Education Impacted the Bottom Line Training in the 21st Century: Everything Old Is New Again Zions Bancorp.: Connecting the Dots Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - December 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.