Week 6 Discussion 1 & 2 Response

2 of Discussion 2 is below

Kyle Jablonski

Alex Edmans discusses why do companies exist and possess the options between, for profit or for purpose? He makes an argument first for the conventional way. That business needs to have good products and good employees to have profit. So profits are the main focus everything else will follow. He then speaks about corporate social responsibility which states that if you focus on the purpose, profits will certainly follow. He then gives evidence with a study that took 4 years which analyzes 100 of the best companies to work for in America published by Fortune magazine which looks at quantitative and qualitative data. He then sets up control groups to isolate the companies and not external factors. His findings were that between 1984-2009, the stock returns were two to three percent higher per year (TEDx Talks, 2015). He was analyzing the causation that by treating employees with better will equate to higher profits.

The example of a company implementing social responsibility is the company I currently work for, National which offers a wide variety of benefits such a life insurance policy, matching 401k, over a month of paid time off, and countless other benefits including programs to get an undergrad or master degree paid for. Things such as offering fitness classes and a sizable gym is also something to improve their employees' style. In the community programs such as honoring teachers with the Life Changer of the year program and offering its employees volunteer hours to get paid to service the community.

Lisa James

In his TEDx Talk entitled The Social Responsibility of Business Alex Edna poses the question: do businesses exist, to earn a profit or to serve a purpose to society (customer, employee, and environment) (TEDx Talks, 2015). Through his talk, he discusses that in order to stay in business, they must generate a profit. However, he states that profits are not guaranteed and that the way to help generate profit is to create happy employees who are committed to the organizational goal. Pareek (2019) seconds this when he states that "Businesses tend to

stay afloat in a turbulent competitive environment by raising the customer satisfaction through

increasing employee satisfaction" (pg. 45). After discussing the importance of organizational social responsibility and ensuring that you invest in your employees, he loops back around to the question - do businesses exist to generate profit or serve a purpose to society? He states that the answer to the question is simply, yes. The answer is not multiple choice because the ability of a company to generate profit relies on the happiness and job satisfaction of its employees.

Cascio and Aguinis (2019) state that organizational social responsibility is a necessity for businesses of all sizes in order to stay relevant in today's hypercritical and global economy. Human resources management should be this near the top of their list when looking at hiring a new employee. How can they build not only a compensation and benefits package in order to attract top talent and retain them, but also what can they do in order to keep the employee happy and motivated to work toward the organizational goals? It is expensive to hire and train employees, so if HR management can invest initially in creating programs or incentives to set themself apart from other companies, it could help save money in the long run.

The company I work for offers an incentive for its employees in February each year that is a percentage of their salary. There are requirements in order to receive the incentive, such as be in good standing with the company and meeting your goals, but the investment they make in the employee is huge. A majority of the employees of the company, which has about 30,000 employees, received an incentive of 14.5% of their salary. Additionally, job search company, Indeed, offers unlimited PTO, a fully stocked kitchen, catered lunch and breakfast one time a week, and a bi-weekly in-office happy hour in order to keep their employees happy (Headley, 2020).