The Minister of Labour, Nimal Siripala de Silva urged the private sector to prioritize their social responsibility towards their employees in order to achieve shared prosperity.
“ For businesses to grow and prosper, they need to have a deep understanding of the social responsibility of their employees and stakeholders, need to act upon it. However, my feeling is that most businesses s have ignored their social responsibility and as a result, their employees are performing below their real potential. This has also been one of the reasons for the lack of progress we have made in economic development as a country,” he said.
The Minister was speaking at an event organized by Rathnapura Liberty Motors to reward and recognize their employees, in Colombo recently.
By integrating social responsibility toward their employees, the Minister pointed out that businesses stand to make productivity gains resulting from high employee satisfaction.
However, in reality, he acknowledged that most of the private sector has failed to understand the value of its employees.
“When I asked the private sector to extend Rs.50 allowance to their workers a. It was quickly turned down by large cooperates and businessmen who are earning billions of Rupees in profits. The most valuable asset of a business is its human resource The private sector needs to have a program to make their employees part of their organizations.. .,” he said.
Minister de Silva thanked the management and ownership of Liberty Motors for actively pursuing ways and means to fulfill their social responsibility to their employees and other stakeholders.
We cannot enforce the social responsibility of businesses by law. It has come within businesses organically as a business development concept. In this regard, I must commend Liberty Motors for incorporating the social responsibility concept into their business prioritizing the welfare of their employees and stakeholders,” he said.
Over 130 employees of Liberty Motors received rewards in recognizing their role in the company’s growth.