Westpac’s sustainability journey was triggered by the financial difficulties of 1980s, which forced the organization to embark on a cost-cutting mission to stay on course of making profits. The cost-cutting involved the discontinuation of some of its corporate social responsibility programs as well as the retrenchment or laying off its staff or the abolishment of some employee benefits leading to poor employee morale.
Service delivery was also affected leading to low customer satisfaction. This forced the organization to think outside the box and find a sustainable way of maintaining a good relationship with its stakeholders, customers, and employees. The organization came with the idea of establishment of Westpac’s Indigenous Working Group.
It also joined hands with other senior leaders in the region to support an Indigenous Enterprise Partnership (IEP), an initiative aimed at empowering the local communities with skills to develop themselves (Black, 2006).
The idea came after a visit to the Cape by the then head of human resources Ann Sherry in 2001. The underlying principle of the IEP was the major shift from a philanthropic mind set to an all-inclusive and participatory relationship with communities with an overall objective of enabling them to brighten their future.
Through the program, the organization was involved in the indirect assistance of the local communities by sending its employees to train them on two major focal areas namely family income management and business facilitation. Through the program, the organization was able to help the communities to help themselves.
The program also enabled the organization to create more job opportunities because it had to send at least 50 employees to the Cape every year (Black, 2006).
The sustainability journey by Westpac has seen over 400 employees work in the Cape, which translates to 50 years of continuous employment. In 2010, the organization announced the expansion of the sustainability program to bring on board other cities such as Redfern and Waterloo (Black, 2006).
The sustainability journey affected Westpac’s stakeholders in a positive way. The communities were able to benefit from the business management skills offered by Westpac employees. The program also created more job opportunities for the youth. It also contributed to the lowering of levels of drug and substance abuse especially among the youth since they were able to engage themselves in business activities.
If I were to become Westpac CEO, I would enhance the sustainability program based on the utilitarian moral philosophy. In business ethics, utilitarianism is about considering several courses of action, considering the costs involved and choosing the course of action which produces maximum good for the maximum number of people, irrespective of the negative effects of the maximization of the good, in this case, profits.
Utilitarianism is an ethical model of reasoning which emphasizes on the maximization of good and happiness and the minimization of the opposites of happiness and good. Its key proponents are John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, who belong the 19th-century philosophy.
According to them, the principles of human interaction are based on the overall good. In this sense, therefore, good is looked from an objective sense in that what is good is seen as what produces ‘good’ for the maximum number of people.
Utilitarianism can be explained as being based on the principle of ‘the end justifies the means,’ meaning if the end of a process or action is good, then the means of arriving at that end are also good and justifiable. According to the model, therefore, for an action to be considered as ethically or morally correct, it should have an outcome which benefits the maximum number of people.
What this means is that people should focus on the end of a process but not the means of arriving at that end. The reason as to why I would enhance the sustainability program by Westpac is because the program was structured to bring on board as many people as possible thus maximizing good and happiness for all those involved.
Reference list
Black, L. 2006, Westpac Australia and the Cape York Indigenous Partnership. Web.