Teleus Ethical Issues

TELUS’s quarterly report released in May, cited dividends rising eleven and a half cents per share from a year ago, as well as divulging plans to increase that share price ten percent annually through 2016, and prompted a share purchase program that will be worth an estimated two billion dollars by 2016. Putting the financial facts aside, for a company that has all the makings to be a perfect fit for the economic model, Telus goes above and beyond to meet the triple bottom line, as a corporation that contributes economically, environmentally and socially.

With over thirteen million customers Telus is a national telecommunications company that covers skews in a variety of fields including, telecommunications, television, and Internet. As
one of the leading telecommunications brands in Canada, Telus has committed itself to upholding a very high standard of corporate social responsibility. Telus defines CSR as, “A firm’s accountability to internal and external stakeholders for organizational performance towards the goal of sustainable development.” Among their efforts to better our tomorrow Telus integrates numerous different fields into their social portfolio. After conducting my research on Telus’s efforts in the community I was thoroughly impressed with the contribution they have not only made to their community, but their efforts around the world.

The first contribution Telus made that really stood out from the rest was their endeavor with Telus Health. It is an online forum that provides customers with access to medical information, medical professionals, and personal health data. Telus has partnered with McMaster in created Upopolis, an online portal designed to help alleviate stress in young people that are permanently hospitalized. It accomplishes this by keeping them connected with friends and family, while sharing and learning. McGill university has partnered with Telus in a three-year, million dollar partnership that plans to research how to use technology to improve healthcare and healthcare delivery to Canadians. Besides contributing via health care advances, Telus has given back to the community with over two hundred and sixty million dollars to charitable organizations, leading the Telus walk for diabetes, and partnering up with numerous hospitals. As you can see Telus provides a high standard for social responsibility that should be followed by competitors.

Telus promotes a strong ethical guideline to which each employee has been trained in and contractually bound too.
In their CSR release in 2013, Telus says that 100% of their team members have taken an integrity course in regards too, ethics, privacy, security, respect and bribery. Telus goes on to address their strict ethics policy, how ethical complaints are handled and the actions taken after the complaint has been filed. Even though there was a high of 183 complaints in 2012, all was handled accordingly. Upon speaking with an employee in a corporate branch in Telus I was informed that the integrity course is overstated in the CSR review that Telus annually publishes. “I never took a course educating me on my integrity obligations as a Telus employee, but they definitely endorse honestly, teamwork and a safe and secure work environment; for both the staff and the customers” said Telus employee Sam Rau-Chaplin. He went on to describe the way Telus is the ideal place to work, down to the application they install on every employee’s phone that lets them communicate and get messages passed down from management
instantly.

Telus is involved in numerous environmental endeavors to help reduce our world’s waste, one phone bill at a time. While putting their team members through environmental training as well as frequently assessing work sites to make sure they are as efficient as possible, Telus is taking little steps to help endorse waste management. While diverting over five million Kilograms from landfills, Telus has also refurbished computers and cellphones for resale, while donating over six hundred computers and printers to schools. They have also reduced hazardous waste, recycled over a hundred and fifty thousand batteries and cut back on water consumption by ten percent from previous years.

I believe that Telus’s attitudes fits into the philanthropic model, they meet their economic function while going above and beyond in community involvement, improvement, education and volunteerism.
This surpassed my expectations, before I conducted research, knowing only on the Telus Health endeavor. Considering the 4.2 million hours contributed to community environment, there is no arguing that Telus is very serious when is comes to their social responsibility and meeting the task head on. My findings have encouraged me to not only support Telus in all its efforts to give back to the community, but opened my eyes to what a difference a corporation can make when they devote themselves to not only maximizing profit, but to bettering the world in which they
operate.

Bibliography
1. Telus Corp. (2013). Quarterly Report. Retrieved from http://about.telus.com/community/english/investor_relations/financial_documents/quarterly_reports_archive

2. Telus Corp. (2013) CSR Report. Retrieved from http://csr.telus.com/en/sustainability_at_telus/#/top

3. Dixon. B (2013, May 7). TELUS Health and McGill University announce multi-disciplinary million-dollar research partnership. Canadian Newswire. Retrieved from http://www.newswire.ca/

4. Corporate Social Responsibility (2013, January 13). Telus Health. Retrieved from http://www.telushealth.com/telus-in-health/corporate-social-responsibility