Anand Govindrajan

Voltas, true to the Tata tradition of service, has long regarded participation in community development initiatives as a vital element of its makeup. The company's 'corporate volunteering' efforts, with more than 100 employees on board, prove that community service makes eminent business and social sense

The Tata Group has always striven to balance its responsibility toward shareholders with a commitment to the community. Group company Voltas, true to this tradition, has consistently looked beyond its immediate business environment to address larger societal issues. This concern springs from the belief that a true corporate vision must embrace the wider community rather than just shareholders, customers and suppliers.

There is nothing idealistic or utopian about this vision, nor is it in conflict with hard-headed business sense. Voltas understands that the time, resources and in-house professional expertise invested in social development projects pay rich dividends to the company and the communities in which it operates. The message is clear: creating profits can and should go hand-in-hand with generating goodwill.

There have been, through the years, numerous causes to which Voltas employees have given freely of their time and effort. But until recently the company’s approach to community development initiatives was not very structured. Things began to change when Margaret D’Souza, the resourceful and motivated senior executive from Voltas’s human resources department in Mumbai, was handed the responsibility of giving the movement a decisive direction.

Ms D’Souza, with a one-year deputation to the Tata Council for Community Initiatives (TCCI), the group’s umbrella organisation for social development projects, behind her, organised a dedicated band of Voltas volunteers. Help was forthcoming from the management. "Our managing director [Ashok Soni] and vice president (human resources [A. J. Gole] have given tremendous support," she says, "enabling me to shape the corporate social responsibility movement for Voltas during my deputation with TCCI."

Speaking at the official release of a brochure on the company’s community development activities, Mr Soni said the fact that Tata Sons (the group’s holding company) was 60 per cent owned by charitable institutions was a vindication of the Tata philosophy of social activism. He commended the volunteering team for its untiring efforts and assured full management support for all such future initiatives.

Mr Gole revealed that over the past year there had been a decisive transfer of control and responsibility from the management to the volunteering team. Ms D’Souza’s deputation to TCCI had, he said, resulted in a more structured approach to the company’s community development initiatives. "The team’s involvement in core competency projects signals a paradigm shift in our corporate volunteering efforts," he remarked.

Voltas volunteers are currently involved in two ‘core competency’ projects, so called because they involve a sharing of the core skills of the company’s employees.

Engineers from across the various divisions have designed a course on air-conditioning that is specifically targeted to meet industry requirements. The course is being offered at the Joseph Cardijn Institute for Vocational Training in Mumbai, with the volunteers providing hands-on training to poor students. The company has donated equipment for this programme, and its former managing director, N. D. Khurody, has extended valuable support to ensure its success.

The diploma course in air-conditioning and refrigeration being offered at the K. J. Somaiya College of Engineering in Mumbai is another brainchild of the Voltas family. Designed by R. S. Iyer, a former general manager at Voltas’s research and development wing, this course is the first of its kind in Mumbai. The maiden batch of students passed out recently, and was quickly absorbed up by the industry.

The company’s ‘corporate volunteering’ efforts encompass numerous other projects in the vicinity of its facilities. This ‘service-nearer-home’ rationale has less to do with maintaining amicable labour relations than with easily monitoring project progress and usage of funds. Presented below are snapshots of some of the causes where Voltas volunteers have made significant contributions.

Vatsalya, a Mumbai shelter for street children, is receiving a helping hand from Voltas. Company volunteers recently organised an exhibition-cum-sale of handicrafts fashioned by the inmates. The event was a sellout, and was followed by a stage show entirely managed by the children. A computer centre for these kids was inaugurated during the function.

The National Association for the Disabled Enterprise, a project directed by TCCI’s Mumbai chapter, employs blind and physically handicapped people to assemble and pack typewriter components. It also runs a printing press — from where Voltas recently sourced a significant volume of stationery — and a garment manufacturing unit.

Akanksha, a haven for Mumbai’s destitute children, operates from Voltas’s Mumbai office. Company volunteers have held a series of meetings with Akanksha officials to start a mentoring programme for these children.

Women are at the vanguard of the company’s community initiatives. With Ms Komal Bir Singh in charge, the Voltas Organisation of Women (VOW) nurses the sick, provides financial help to the needy, and frequently organises various seminars, knowledge workshops and training camps for the general public. The bulk of VOW’s budget is allocated for dispensing medical treatment, and it plans to set up a dialysis centre for poor kidney patients in the near future.

The ANZA school for mentally handicapped children in Mumbai is another institution Voltas has adopted. Volunteers actively support the many workshops organised at this school and arrange to sell the handicrafts made by the children. Plans are afoot to set up a regular stall selling the school’s products.
The Shepherd’s Widows’ Home is a regular stopover for the volunteers. They chat up these lonely women and make them feel wanted. Last Christmas was a truly joyous occasion for the inmates, with Santa providing the icing on the cake — a brand new TV.

Voltas employees from Pune recently visited the Father V. S. Lourdu’s Children’s Shelter in the city. The gifts they distributed brought a great deal of cheer to the homeless children there. This volunteering effort was spearheaded by N. S. Shenoy and Arnavaz Irani.

The Tata Group has joined hands with the Hyderabad-based MV Foundation to educate child labourers. Voltas Hyderabad, with Vikram Kajjam from the human resources department at the helm, is actively supporting this project by donating furniture and teaching material.

A team of Voltas volunteers in Kolkata distributed school uniforms to needy children during last year’s Durga Puja festivities. The city office has installed a collection box for employee contributions toward social service activities.
Volunteers regularly visit the St. Joseph’s Old Age Home, run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, in Kolkata to chat up the lonely people there and bring some cheer to their bleak lives.

With the Tata Business Excellence Model offering significant importance to such worthy initiatives, the group has sent a strong signal that all Tata companies must do their bit for the community at large. Voltas is doing more than its bit to fulfil this commitment.

Uploaded in May 2002