Firms told to turn employees into social entrepreneurs

Jef Menguin, a leadership adviser, discusses social entrepreneurship during a Cebu Business Month forum at the Cebu City Marriott Hotel. (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)

A social entrepreneur is encouraging businesses in Cebu to pursue positive behavior change within their organizations to help transform society.

Jef Menguin, who is also a leadership adviser, said businesses can engage in social entrepreneurship by starting with what they have and empowering employees to become “social entrepreneurs.”

Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s pressing problems.

“What will I do that will affect the community as a whole? This is a question we should constantly ask ourselves,” he said during the Social Entrepreneurship Conference at Cebu City Marriott Hotel on Thursday.

Menguin designs leadership development programs that meet the present and future business needs of organizations. He also runs team building facilitators bootcamps that help HR and training managers facilitate result-oriented team building activities.

He said social entrepreneurship gives meaning to businesses, but business communities have yet to totally grasp that concept.

Menguin said he firmly believes that companies can become social enterprises by providing mechanisms they can use to drive positive behavior change among their employees.

“You don’t have to create social enterprises if you’re not ready, but you can make your employees social entrepreneurs today,” he said.

Among the things company leaders can do to drive change in behavior among employees are encouraging them to exercise and providing access to healthcare services, having them volunteer in the community or donate to charity, and urging them to recycle or purchase “green” products.

“Social entrepreneurship is not as difficult as people think. Any man who desires to make change can make change happen,” said Menguin.

Business leaders, he added, should keep their people motivated by constantly communicating to them about what they want their company to be known for.

Menguin said creating social pressure, wherein a workforce is so saturated with people who are “catalysts for change” that others will follow suit, eventually creates a culture of social responsibility within the organization.

He added that businesses can transform the impact of their everyday actions into conscious collective movements of good choices.

“A simple action can create a ripple of change,” said Menguin.

Business with a cause

For Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Central Visayas and Negros Island Region Director Asteria Caberte, social entrepreneurship is simply “business with a cause” aimed to reduce poverty.

She said this kind of enterprise leverages on available resources to increase income generation as well as alleviate the situation of the poor.

“This closes the inequality gap through the reflow of profits to the community,” she said in her keynote speech during the same conference.

Citing a study, Caberte said that in the Philippines, social entrepreneurship has reached out to 2.5 million Filipinos living below the poverty line and this number is seen to grow twice with support from the government.

In Cebu, Caberte said the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) is among organizations promoting social entrepreneurship, providing advice to entrant businesses, venues for networking, and promoting these enterprises.

She said the DTI, on the other hand, has also implemented programs that highlight social entrepreneurship as a means to overcoming difficulties including the establishment of Shared Service Facilities and Negosyo Centers, among others.

This strengthened partnership between the government and private sectors becomes a support system for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) whose growth will eventually spur economic growth.