InterWest Interpreting
The name of the Community Partner I chose to familiarize myself with is InterWest Interpreting. I used their website to research them. Here is a link to their website:
Their Mission:
InterWest Interpreting commits to excellence in providing outstanding quality Sign Language services with professionalism, sensitivity and integrity.
The societal issues they are providing resources to:
InterWest provides Sign Language interpreting services, which includes American Sign Language and English Sign Language as well as Oral and Tactile interpreting. Services are conducted both on-site as well as through video relay technology dependent on the needs of the customer.
InterWest provides equal access to various businesses and organizations including medical, legal, and educational settings. The issues connected to medical and legal settings hold primary concerns that impacts our communities every day. Everyone is concerned about healthcare to preserve health and safety through life, legal settings serve the community by following legalities to provide a safe community to live, educational settings provide educational opportunities for our children and continuing education for all.
This civic engagement concept of Social Entrepreneurship & Corporate Social Responsibility applies to all organizations and encourages equal access to communication for all businesses serving the public. Providing an interpreter saves time, reduces confusion, liability, and frustration for all parties involved. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that accommodations be provided in order to provide clear and concise communication and prevent discriminatory treatment of Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals.
I can see myself working with InterWest as a VRS interpreter. I would like to get experience in various settings including VRS. I know working VRS can be a challenging setting and take a toll on mental health, for this reason, I want to make sure I take care of myself in this setting.
Concept Cues
SE & CSR Concept Cues
How was social responsibility explained in the video?
Alex Edmans explains that the social responsibility of a business is to increase profit and care about their employees. A business tries to make a profit by making good decisions. If a business shows they care about their employees, and make sure they are taken care, then the company has an excellent reputation for quality, and in turn that leads to profit. Employee well-being causes good performance rather than good performance causing the company to spend money on employee well-being. Caring about society does not happen at the expense of profit, it supports profit.
What responsibility does a business have to its employees?
Businesses have a responsibility to treat their employees well. Better pay than average and a positive environment with good benefits, will result in hiring better people that will stay longer and be more efficient.
Explain the relationship between the profit of the business and society’s well-being.
To earn profit a business/company must care about society. It must make quality products or customers will stop buying. Businesses must treat workers well or they will leave.
Businesses exist to serve a purpose. To make a product that transforms customers lives for the better and employees working in a healthy and enriching workplace, and preserve the environment for future generations
Merck said, “We try never to forget that medicine is for the people, it is not for the profits. The profits follow and if we remember that, they have never failed to appear.” The priorities that make a business successful are people first, then profits.
“Social responsibility cannot be quantified, but it can be measured,” what did Alex Edmans mean by that?
Social responsibility cannot be measured with financial numbers, but you can measure employee well-being. The market is too focused on numbers and financial success. It often takes the market 4-5 years before employee benefits fully become apparent. It’s important to think long-term value not short-term numbers.
Businesses today exist to both earn a profit and serve a purpose and they generate profits in the long run.