Company Specific Corporate Social Responsibility Issues - Home Depot - Case Study Example

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The report is conducted to analyze the issue of Corporate Social Responsibility of Home Depot. The report talks about the current issue of CSR faced by the company along with the issue that has not been resolved so far. The justification of an issue is also discussed in the report to understand the perception of the company for the action taken at somewhat against the corporate social responsibility. The affected stakeholders are also defined to analyze that which stakeholder will be majorly affected and which one is slightly affected.

In the end of the report the recommendations are given to solve this current issue faced by the company. INTRODUCTION OF COMPANY Home Depot is renowned for its fastest growth as a retailer in the U.S retailing industry. The organization is having a title of the world’s largest home improvement retailer. The company started its operations in the year 1981. At initial level, company registered as a public limited company in NASDAQ and in 1984 the company moved to the New York Stock Exchange (Home Depot).

Over the period of time, company has achieved tremendous success and it has expanded its operations and products in Canada. The strategy followed to expand in the Canadian market was of acquisition. In 2001, company entered in the Mexico market by acquiring the total HOME. Company has a strong goodwill in the US market and it is continuously expanding its market and increasing its market share among all the competitors (Burritt). ISSUE Home Depot is one of the largest retailers of US. The company has a great reputation among the people of US.

Company has always been involved in the activities of corporate social responsibility to provide support to the people of society and help the society. For the last few months, the company is striving for maintaining its corporate social image. Home Depot plans to cut down its expenditure by ending the medical allowance of about 20,000 part-time employees. The company directs the part-time employees to government sponsored programs of health and safety. The employees with less than 30 working hours a week will not be eligible for getting the benefit of medical coverage.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ISSUE Home Depot has directed its part-time or low wage employees to use the Obama care plan. Obama care plan is designed to give the medical coverage to those people who have no access for medical coverage for them selves and their families so far. Obama care plan is to beneficiate those Americans who have low-wages and cannot afford medical insurance. After the announcement of Obama care plan, Home Depot decided to direct the all low-wages employees to the Obama care plan and save the amount of medical coverage for the rest of the permanent employees of the company (Burritt).

Taxes and medical services will become costly after the implementation of Obama care plan and the permanent employees of the company would have to pay more taxes than they were paying before. The company has analyzed the facts and figures and has started cutting its expenses to give more facilities to the permanent employees of the company to retain them for a long term. The increased taxes and medical service amount will be used to facilitate low-wages employees of the country it is mentioned in Obama care plan (Whelan).

IDENTIFY YOUR STAKE HOLDERS The stakeholders are identified and discussed in a sequence with respect to their power and interest. Mange closely: NGOs, Government medical institutions, Social service institutions The most important stakeholders are NGOs, social service institutions and government hospitals for Home Depot at the stage of facing the issue of corporate social responsibility. It is very common that unemployed or the people with low-wages when face any issue from the employer side then they usually look towards the social service institutions, social welfare institutions and NGOs for their support.

Therefore the overall burden will be bear by such type of institutions. Keep informed: share holders Shareholders are associated with the corporate image of the company. The issues of corporate social responsibility directly impact the reputation of the organization therefore the shareholders of the company will bear the risk of negative fluctuations in share prices. The company needs to justify its action regarding the CSR for retaining the shareholders. Keep satisfied: employees Employees in today’s philosophy of business are considered as the key element of getting competitive edge in the concentrated competition.

It is very important for Home Depot to keep satisfied its employees in the company to retain them for a long term. Monitor (minimum efforts) customers Customers are also associated with corporate social responsibility activities of the company. CSR is considered as very important activity for building positive reputation in the mind of customers. The company needs to be very careful regarding its CSR activities and continuously monitoring the response of customers about the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility decisions.

RECOMMENDATIONS The role of the company regarding the corporate social responsibility is not completely justified in this situation because the company is completely directing all the low-wages or part-time employees to the Obama care plan for low-wage and unemployed people. This would highly increase the burden of social welfare institutions and the government as well. Social welfare institutions would have difficulties in managing this kind of burden. Here the company has to realize that the burden of a huge amount of low-wages employees will be difficult to manage under such circumstances.

Home Depot should make amendments in its plan and not completely remove the amount of medical coverage of part time employees. In this situation, the company needs to restructure its plan and instead of completely ending the medical coverage it has to be reduced by some percentage. The company can make the plan for supporting by 50% of medical coverage to the part time employees. POSSIBLE IMPLICATION The 50% support of medical coverage will reduce the burden of social welfare institution or NGOs of the society.

The burden over the government institutions will also be reduced because it is very difficult for such type of institutions to manage the immediate funds to meet the immediate requirements. The health and life of people is associated with this decision therefore the plan for 50% support will not highly affected the health of part time workers. By adapting this plan the Company will be able to maintain its positive social image in the society. This plan will also not very much disturb the management of healthcare system in the US.

With this decision the Obama care plan will be able to provide the maximum benefits to those who really needs and deserves a support to maintain a good health. Works Cited Burritt, Chris. Home Depot Sending 20,000 Part-Timers to Health Exchanges. Bloomberg, Sep. 2013. 29 Nov. 2013. < http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-19/home-depot-sending-20-000-part-timers-to-health-exchanges.html> Home Depot. Our History. 2012. 29 Nov. 2013. Whelan, David. Trader Joes, Home Depot and the Unresolved Fairness Issue Inside ObamaCare.

Forbes, Sep. 2013. 29 Nov. 2013.