In a crisis, the concept of corporate social responsibility is somewhat different: on the one hand, companies face various hardship in the market; on the other, businesses are responsible to their employees. The IT businessman and well-known investor Rustam Gilfanov helps us get an insight into corporate ethics.
Corporate social responsibility is gaining particular importance in the context of an economic crisis. Many companies typically consider a socially responsible policy as an effective means of investing in their own image, but in times of crisis, social aspects of the corporate responsibility to employees come to the fore.
For instance, in the “COVID-19: Implications for business” report, analysts at McKinsey&Company pay special attention to protecting one’s employees and recommend developing support plans for them. During the crisis, employees are experiencing a strong emotional stress — and are forced to work. What they need is support of their management. “Now many concepts of modern management are losing their meaning — will your employees be loyal if you do not pay them salaries and don’t allocate any basic means of protection? It’s true that companies are going through hard times, but this is no reason to hide from their subordinates and leave them to their fate. To begin with, it is necessary to provide objective information about the coronavirus and methods of protection; secondly, management should organize the work on the development of anti-crisis measures; thirdly, directors need to interact more often with their team, inspire them to overcome difficulties, and show their leadership qualities,” believes Rustam Gilfanov.
Experts are also of the view that business representatives should focus on the quality and safety of their products. Consumers may have concerns that companies during the crisis save on many things and use low-quality materials, not complying with the standards. Client confidence will then be difficult to restore.
“Any crisis is a temporary phenomenon. If a company began to save on the quality of their products, conducted a drastic reduction in the staff, created conditions for the secrecy and nontransparency of information, it will be difficult for them to regain the trust of not only customers and partners but also society and the state as a whole,” Gilfanov says.
Besides, Rustam Gilfanov, known for his charity projects, believes that special attention should be paid to volunteering and corporate philanthropy. The fact is that companies have to abandon many social programs, except for the most important ones that cannot be just stopped (support for orphanages or schools, for example). Still, even with a dramatic reduction in corporate charity, volunteering and philanthropy can maintain partnerships with the existing recipients, as well as strengthen the corporate spirit within a team.
Brief biographical note
Rustam Gilfanov is a co-founder of an IT company, IT businessman and international investor.
Rustam Gilfanov was born on January 6, 1983 in a small village of Basim, Perm Region, to a family of a military man and a teacher.
In 2006, Gilfanov Rustam, along with his partners, opened an international outsourcing IT company in Kyiv. The company is currently the largest developer of software for the game industry, marketing, and finance.
A few years ago, Gilfanov withdrew from the operational activities in his IT company to focus on international investment into promising IT projects in the field of financial technologies, gaming, and video streaming. Besides, Rustam Gilfanov finds it important to promote his charitable projects in Ukraine, the most extensive of them being LuckyBooks and Libraries of the Future.
Gilfanov Rustam is married and has a daughter.
