Serco’s performance

In the new global economy, corporate social responsibility has become a fundamental issue for every company that exists at present. Neither new nor established companies can steer clear of this responsibility, which is pursuing long-term objectives that will carry an assortment of benefits towards the stakeholders such as employees, customers and the community (Aravossis, Panayiotou and Tsousi 2006).

Companies are ought to execute this inevitable duty with proper guidelines in their code of conducts without violating any laws and regulation. One of the many vast corporations that performed its duty utterly is none other than Serco, a company that comprise of 34,000 human resources, that manages public services and is currently the world’s leading global outsourcing industry (Grayson and Hodges 2004). Serco was founded in the year 1929 in order to sustain United Kingdom’s cinema industry. Examples of operations that Serco run are traffic management system, education authorities as well as hospitals (Our history 2012). The objective of this research is to evaluate the social performance of Serco, followed by a reasonable argument concerning the positive and negative implications toward the society.

The Case for Serco Welfare-to-work is one of Serco’s foremost accomplishments, with the intention of aiding those who has been unemployed for a lengthy period of time. The operation was formed on October 2009 as a prime contractor for supplying job opportunities to the unemployed that would indirectly upgrade their life in terms wellbeing. Over the years, Serco supported approximately 25,000 jobless people by offering them a range of practical programmes such as Employment Zones, along with Flexible New Deal and the Work Programme (The work programme 2012). Recent activity happened in South Yorkshire, where Serco was chosen to carry out the Work programme (Dearne Valley Business Forum 2012). So far, Serco managed to pull off its main objective, by shifting ten individuals’ life, assisting them in achieving a secure and sustainable life as to what the Welfare-to-work operation have promised (Serco 2012).

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Skills4u, or in other words, S4U is a project formed by Serco Group in the year 2004. Serco realized that a partial amount of employees of the corporation were lacking ofcertain skills for the purpose of working. Therefore, this project was formed and aims at developing skilled employees in terms of working skills, by offering intensive training and guidance mainly towards the incompetent employees (Serco 2007). At this instant, the project proved itself to be effective for the reason that countless employees were educated through communication skills training session and other related activities. For the corporation itself, nearly a quarter of the human resources participated in the programme and was trained wholly (Serco plc 2007).

Furthermore, Serco wanted to demonstrate its support towards the cancer awareness in UK. As a result, the corporation assembled a group of 8 individuals, who volunteered to climb the Mont Blanc that was initiated on 10th September 2011 (The challenge 2012). The team was called the ‘Transport Leadership Team’. The purpose of the exploratory climb is to raise an amount of donation fund, which is approximately £100,000 for the UK’s Cancer Research charity.

The altitude of the mountain is roughly 4.8 kilometers far above the ground, and is claimed to be the highest mountain in Western Europe (Climb Mont Blanc inm the summer 2012). The team has trained intensively to be entirely prepared and equipped for the climbing challenge. For the sake of the climb, Serco and other parties such as business partners and families members were eager to sponsor the operation to show their support. Even the team members were generous enough to donate £10,000 for the charity. The team was very determined to complete the operation despite any risk that was involved.

The Case Against Serco Despite earning momentous reputation in performing its corporate social responsibilities towards the society, Serco have made several slip-ups which have certainly created doubts among the people, as regards to whether Serco is sincere in terms of helping the society or it is merely for the sake of reputation. Throughout the year 2011, several news bulletins criticized the Curtin Detention Centre’s management, which is located in the north of Western Australia, where asylum seekers are locked away for an extended period of time. This detention is under the management of Serco, and was disapproved of their conducts that mistreated the asylum seekers (Iverson 2011).

Apparently, the management lied to several activists that went there for a social visit and they gave loads of excuses to prevent visitors from entering the detention centre. Then, the activists soon found out the motives behind their secretive behaviors, and it was because they have mistreated the asylum seekers ruthlessly both physically and mentally all this while.

Subsequently, these captives formed the tendency to harm themselves due to the sufferings they went through in the detention centre. Besides that, the captives also threaten to injure themselves if they were not let loose from the detention centre. The rates of captives injuring themselves are fairly high throughout every detention centre in Australia (Cordell and Hooke 2011). Furthermore, there have been incidents of detainee committing suicide. On the 28th October 2011, a male detainee committed suicide because his social contract was rejected and he was not permitted to participate in a particular religious event that he wished to (Chan 2011).

Another issue that was criticized intensely was how shocking the manner Serco Group act upon while managing the privately run prison, which is the Doncaster prison. There were insufficient numbers of pillows, prison cells that were not cleaned on a daily basis, electronic appliances that were provided for captives such as the television was left aside and unfixed. It appears that since the management of the prison was replaced by Serco Group, things went awry in almost every aspects of the prison’s management (Alan Travis 2006).

Then, another issue stated that due to insufficient quantity of prison cells, three captives were forced to settle in together in a two-person cell. The chief inspector felt very frustrated by this act because captives should never be neglected in that manner despite whatever crimes they have done. Obviously, Serco have ignored the civil rights of the imprisoned captives and mistreated them without any guilt. Instead of resolving the overcrowded crisis by transporting additional captives to other location, the management decided to squeeze in every captive to each cell which is very inconvenient for them and is also against the law (Sara Gaines 2008).

One of the most upsetting incidents that have ever occurred under the influence of Serco is none other than the death of a 14 years old teenage boy, after being assaulted by four Serco-trained guards in 2004 (Chloe Papas 2011). Apparently the guards beaten the teenage boy by giving an out-of-the-ordinary blow to his nose, claiming it was a technique used by the guards to pin down the boy so that he would not fight back (Daily mail reporter 2012).

After few hours have passed by, the teenage boy was later then found dead after he hung himself in his very own prison cell. The teenage boy refused to follow the instructions of the guards, hence, they applied improper methods just to teach the teenage boy a lesson. The boy’s parents sued Serco for being reckless and irresponsible for the actions of the guards. Serco has been practicing outrageous modus operandi when it comes to managing private prison everywhere.

Based on a recent report, the Welfare-to-Work programme may not be as beneficial and as helpful as it supposed to be. Rumor has it that Serco created the programme merely for the income profit it receives from the government, for each jobless individual they put into durable jobs that are available in the market. Unfortunately, Serco was not putting out their best efforts to assist these unemployed people, instead it was found out that these group of people were not given what they were supposed to get hold of, as to what was written in the agreement between them and Serco(Daniel Boffey 2012). It is essential for Serco to do the act of walk-to-walk, instead of just talk-to-talk for the sake of profit. Its obligation is to provide comfort and genuine expectation towards the stakeholders and the community that rely on the corporation.

Conclusion Remarks On balance, it can be argued that Serco’s performance in terms of social responsibilities was terrible due to the recklessness of its management. The achievement of its fundraising campaign, the work programme and several other activities that were intended to aid the less fortunate, was not enough to cover up its various weak point. Incidents happening in the Curtin Detention Centre as well as Serco’s privately run prison should never be allowed to take place again. Serco have yet to fulfill its entire responsibility towards the community and stakeholders, particularly employees, detainees from the detention centre and also captives of any prison that is under the management of Serco.

Prior to managing any other organization, Serco must first run through its guidelines in the code of conducts and carry out their duties without violating anymore laws and regulation. Serco must also value the civil rights of every individual they have dealt with in the past and in the future. Thus, Serco may be praised for its contributions towards the society, however, there are still loads of effort that has yet to be completed if they wish to maintain society’s faith in the corporation while it last.

Reference List:

Aravossis1, Konstantin G, Nikolaos A. Panayiotou, Katerina Tsousi. 2006. “A proposed methodological framework for the evaluation of corporate social responsibility.” Environmental Economics and Investment Assessement WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment 98.

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