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Increasing numbers of middle managers are volunteering for chanty assignments in the developing world. Hoar (page 155) describes how Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) strives to recruit mid-career professionals who can strengthen organizations in the public and private sectors in more than 30 countries around the globe.
One such volunteer is Mike Greenland, who spent two years as a VSO forestry lecturer in South Africa. VSO trained him in basic skills to help him to prepare for life teaching in a new environment. He was then offered a job lecturing in a small agricultural college in the Amatola Mountains of the Eastern Cape.
His daily tasks involved more than lecturing. He also helped to develop and implement a community forestry curriculum on the back of a Department for International Development project. He worked alongside other organizations and local villagers to help develop opportunities for students through work placements, outreach to surrounding villages and a new curriculum.
He reckons that the experience was, by turns, exciting, inspirational, maddening and frustrating. He learnt about himself and about the region, its environment, people, culture and economy. He also gained a renewed confidence in his abilities, and work experience that is well respected in his field.
Hoar acknowledges that not all employers support the idea of volunteering, and that there is a feeling among some volunteers that VSO must improve if it is to attract more business recruits. Nevertheless, it can be enormously worthwhile and fulfilling.
Business people do not, of course, need to undertake voluntary work to make the world a better place. They can also do it in the way they perform their usual tasks.
At the heart of sustainable development is the simple idea of a better quality of life for everyone, now and for generations to come, while achieving a stable economic environment. Employees at energy giant Shell, which produces more than 3% of the world's oil and gas, are able to contribute to this key aim. Wei-Skillern (page 152) analyses the impact on sustainable development of Shell's stakeholder approach.
The company revised its business principles in 1997 to include a commitment to contribute to sustainable development. For Shell, this is about engaging with stakeholders to...