EuroAble - CSR in Action

In the Sunday Times of India yesterday, I saw a bright display ad titled "EuroAble". Now Eureka Forbes (http://www.eurekaforbes.com/) is a company I have been fascinated with for a few years now, more so after interacting with their leadership team over the last few months and understanding a little bit about their values, cultures and how they run their business. It looks like Eureka Forbes has done something spectacular yet again - they have set up a 80 seater call centre that is manned by handicapped individuals.

Whenever I have interacted with charities, I constantly hear that the people in need of help and support want something that will give them dignity, want opportunities where they can earn their living, rather than simply get free money/goods. A call centre job is something that is ideally suited for someone with physical disability that prevents them from moving around easily. I have often wondered why call centres don't make an extra effort to employ handicapped individuals - with the amount of investment & effort that goes into training in call centres, I was sure that companies could put in a little extra bit to train these individuals (even if it meant teaching them English from scratch). I also believed that this could have significant business benefits for call centre companies - managing attrition a little better. A CSR initiative to actively employ disabled individuals would be great - business benefit plus a tangible measurable benefit to a section of society that needs a little extra help.

What EuroAble has done with this ad in the newspaper and a Facebook page to its credit (www.facebook.com/eurekaforbes), is to ask everyone involved in call centers the question - Why haven't you done something like this? Even if some people wonder why Eureka Forbes placed this ad - for publicity sake maybe. If you don't tell anyone the good work you are doing, how will others be able to role model you? I think that the ripple effect the initiative and the publicising of it will have, should be significant. Way to go - Eureka Forbes.