Question

3.a. One of the key issues of concern as a corporation is safe environment for key stakeholders. In your attempt to address this concern as a Manager of a named institution, discuss some of the safety measures you have put in place to protect the following stakeholders against the COVID-19 spread in your institution: (i) Customers (ii) Employees. the solutions must be well explain.

b. One of the theories of corporate governance is the stakeholder theory. You are to select
one business organization and explain how this theory applies in that organization.

Answer 1

3.a

For a corporation, to provide a safe environment to the stakeholders must be the top priority. As and more the Covid-19 is spreading and the lockdown restrictions are lifting, it becomes very much important for all the organizations to take safety and preventative measures in order to ensure that the key stakeholders are safe and healthy and does not come in contact of this virus. As a manager, here are some safety measures being taken to prevent the spread of Covid-19 at workplace:

For Employees:

• Social distancing: As we all know that social distancing is very important in order to contain the spread of Covid-19 as it is a transmittable disease and gets easily transferred from one person to another al either by touch or any kind of contact. Therefore employees are advised to maintain a six feet distance from each other at workplace. Handshakes and hugs are strictly banned and employees will sit adjacent to each other leaving one workstation empty in between.
• Thermal scanners are installed at all of the entry points of office. Each of the employees has to get themselves scanned while entering and exiting the premised. The temperature for each day will be recorded and monitored on daily basis.
• An emergency staff of 2 doctors and their support staff will be available 24/7 in the office in order to provide emergency care in case of any medical condition.
• Contact less hand sanitizers machines have been installed at various places across the office like bathrooms, floor entry gates, pantry areas and employees are advised to use these machines on a frequent basis.
• Meetings should be conducted maximum virtually in order to prevent gathering of people.
• Employees are advised to not use public transport and only commute on self or use office transport if required.
• Gyms, recreational activities, parties or any kind of gathering in office is strictly prohibited until further notice.
• Face covers, masks and shoe covers are must to have on for all the employees. No entry will be given to anyone without masks. Masks and shoe covers are also made available in the offices as a health kit.
• Proper cleaning and frequent sanitization to be ensured at the workplace by the concerned department, particularly of the frequently touched surfaces and reports to be sent to the senior authorities once the process is done.
• Exclusive guidelines issued for washing hands frequently and maintain personal hygiene in office.
• If any employee is feeling unwell or has mild or severe symptoms like cough, sneezing or fever is advised to stay home. Company will conduct a Covid-19 test for them and quarantine for at least 14 days is mandatory for such employees.
• Older employees, pregnant women employees, employees with medical history are advised to stay home and work from home until further notice as they come in high risk category.
• In pantry areas and cafeterias, more than one person is not allowed on a single table. Managers must provide a break roaster to each employee and everyone will take a lunch break according to the roaster so that more people are not gathered in canteen or pantry area.

For customers:

Above stated guidelines are applicable to customers also. Other than the above safety measures there are some more measures taken in order to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in customers.

• Customers are advised to not sit in groups when they come to office for getting their queries resolved.
• Customers are advised to visit office only if it is too urgent, otherwise stay at home and give us a call. We will try to solve it on call only.
• Customers are advised to not touch here and there in the office premises and wait for their turn sitting at one place.
• Customers are advised to use masks, shoe covers, gloves and other preventative measure while coming to office for their work.

b. Stakeholder theory can be defined as a theory which states that a company owes a responsibility to a wider group of stakeholders. Earlier companies use to think shareholders as their only stakeholder and each aspect of business use to revolve around them. But as the nature of business changed, besides shareholders there were many stakeholders like employees, customers, government, suppliers, creditors etc. The stakeholder theory given by Edward Freeman says that any person or body which is affected by the actions of business is the stakeholder of that company. It is an essential part of corporate governance, a concept which states the responsibilities of corporate towards society.

We will discuss the stakeholder theory application in Google:

Google, being one of the largest companies across the world has many stakeholders. The stakeholders of Google are diverse because it offers numbers of products in the market. Now as the number of products is more the number of stakeholders is also more depending on the different groups impacted through this diversified businesses. Let’s see who all are the actual stakeholders of Google:

• Users
• Employees
• Advertisers and other customers
• Investors
• Governments
• Communities

The above list is prioritized on the basis of importance they hold in Google. These stakeholders affect all of the strategic decisions of Google.

Google has always cared about all of their stakeholders and not only shareholders. They strictly follow the stakeholder theory led down by Edward Freeman and have programs and policies that address the concerns of all the stakeholders. Users being the epicenter of Google's Corporate social responsibility are given extra importance while making any decision. Every product is designed keeping in mind the needs of stakeholders and besides users, other stakeholders are also given due importance and proper care is taken to protect the rights and interests of these stakeholders. For e.g. employees; Google has one of the highest employee satisfaction ratio and people love to work for Google.

The sheer reason that Google care about all the stakeholders has made them a number one search engine across the globe. Other competitors like Bing or Yahoo has never been able to compete Google on this level.