AESE, Management and Business School, receive some of the most important Companies in the country for an innovative event in Portugal, the delivery of the Most Family Orientated Company. The aim of this award, promoted by AESE and Deloitte, is to acknowledge and distinguish the companies which internally manage the best social responsibility policy, protecting both its co-operators and their families.
Portugal Telecom was the winner in the large companies category, having stood out due to the attribution of scholarships to the children of co-operators, an initiative praised by everyone.
Luís Moura, Manager of Human Resources of the Portugal Telecom Group received the award for the "Most family-orientated Company ". According to him, "it is with great pride that PT receives this award and will do everything possible to continue playing an important role in the social responsibility area”.
Raúl Diniz, from AESE, said “It is impossible to have a good market without the essential ethical values”. On of the key sentences of the event was “The organisations must do what is right and not what is easy”.
A company of great dimension at all levels must have social policies which conciliate work and family. Thus there is no need to work longer hours one must just work in a more intelligent manner.
Luís Magalhães, from Deloitte, was also present and complimented the participating companies. The initial invitation was made out to 900 companies, but in the end only 6%, that is 54 companies, participated amongst which are OPCA, TAP, Páginas Amarelas, HP, IBM and CTT.
The study was carried out by Fátima Carioca, from AESE, and it involved issues such as women at work, schedules, licence modality, services pertaining to assistance to children and elderly, family services, support services and many other factors of social responsibility within the company.
Maria Núria Chinchilla, from IESE, was also present. Author of many books on this issue one of the main problems, in her opinion is excess time spent within the company, a factor which is of the responsibility of the actual company. “There is a tendency to follow what I call a religious Schedule. We start when God tells us to and we just leave when God wants”, she says.
According to this Spanish professor, this doesn’t mean there is more productivity, on the contrary. Besides, it is the family that always loses out.
Portuguese IBM won in the category of medium-sized companies and there was still an honourable mention for Têxtil Nortenha, specially for the way it tries to protect its co-operators in times of crisis within the sector.
As Raul Diniz, from AESE, said quoting Fernando Pessoa: “now it is equally important that you don’t give up on something that has been started”.