media update’s David Jenkin was at the Cummins South Africa offices on Friday, 28 July to hear all about it.

Cummins Inc. is an American corporation that designs, manufactures, and distributes engines, filtration, and power generation products with a presence across 190 countries. Their offices in Johannesburg hosted the breakfast session on the importance of doing good and giving back as a business.    

Giving back on company time

Cummins South Africa’s head of HR, Lungo Mkhize, began by talking about how the company values integrity and strives to follow through on their promise of reaching communities and making a real difference in people’s lives. She explained how each member of staff is encouraged to spend at least four hours a year of company time serving a corporate responsibility project.

This focus is not about Cummins as a company, she stressed, but about making a difference because it’s the right thing to do, in a way that goes beyond merely handing out cheques.

Sal Govender, sales and marketing leader at Cummins South Africa, said they believe in teaching people how to fish, especially young people, to ensure sustainability. “It should never ever be about social recognition,” she said, “It should always be about that corporate social investment – you as an organisation giving back to the community … The way we operate is to better the lives of communities we work and live in. We don’t just say that; we actually live it.”

Benefits to the brand

Corporate responsibility is important in brand strategy, she explained, because it articulates how authentic an organisation is. Ultimately it influences how the business is perceived by the end user.

“It’s not only about selling your brand solutions or your end products, it’s really about ‘how do we enrich nations’? That’s where we should start thinking as corporates – how do we fundamentally affect and impact the lives of others? It’s not just about the bottom line.”

July at Cummins was ‘Mandela Month’, turning the Mandela Day initiative into a month-long campaign, which saw staff preparing nearly 2,000 sandwiches for underprivileged children at a nearby school, painting the school’s science lab and distributing flashlights.

Answering a question from the floor on oversight, Govender explained that Cummins has a dedicated department that ensures any such programme first undergoes a comprehensive needs analysis, and a long-term strategy is then devised. Close attention is given to how funds are allocated and the longevity of the project, and each branch has a budget allocated for corporate responsibility initiatives. She added that media coverage is only sought if it can benefit the project, such as sourcing skills or resources, or to see staff recognised for their hard work.

Another avenue discussed was the upskilling of staff, and Siboni Tsabedze, whose MBA was sponsored by Cummins, explained the benefits to corporates that opt to do that. Staff feel valued, she said, which improves loyalty and encourages them to become brand ambassadors.

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It has become vital for corporates today to have a social conscience. Read more in our article, Business with a conscience – why doing good matters more than ever.