Corporations must play a vital role in improving road safety in the UAE
Article originally featured on Zaywa.
31 July 2016
· Corporations have the power to influence staff and their external eco-system
· Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) gets more embraced by corporations
· Thought-leading UAE corporations are invited to share their best practice
Dubai, UAE - The ambitious targets of the UAE government's 'UAE Vision 2021' with regards to road fatalities demand the support of the entire nation and UAE's corporations must play a vital role in achieving those targets. In this context, more corporations are rising to the challenge, becoming ever more aware of their critical role. Thought-leading corporations and management develop holistic programmes focusing on road safety to educate and protect their staff, customers and consumers. Corporations who team up in joint initiatives increase the reach and share costs of these activities. Hence, they increase their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) positioning and even improve their bottom lines by reducing accident related costs, such as insurance premiums, leave of absence costs and other indirect costs.
David Greer OBE, Chief Executive Officer of Serco Middle East states: "We joined the CSR platform RoadSafetyUAE, because we fully support the cause of road safety and we have a lot of best practice to share with other committed corporations in the UAE. We pride ourselves to be thought-leaders and advocate an ethos of 'Zero Harm'. The company strives for Zero Harm to its employees throughout the year, which includes vigilant road safety practices by all company drivers and staff.
"It is vital to understand, that corporations have a direct influence over staff, suppliers, customers and consumers. Serco commits human and financial resources to road safety initiatives and developed a holistic array of tools to address our target audiences, for example a corporate road safety video translated into 5 languages, a full year staff-engagement calendar including monthly focus topics, defensive driving courses, a seat belt awareness drive, corporate policies for staff and bus transportation, including 'Bus Champions'. We believe in the 'practice what you preach' approach - for instance, since the beginning of this year, all Serco Middle East employees have been requested to sign a pledge to wear a seatbelt at all times. This is enforced when on company-provided transport, but we also stress the need for safety when travelling in one's own vehicles and especially with friends and families during leisure time. We hope that Serco's message provides a call to action for all companies who want to protect the wellbeing of their employees."
Thomas Edelmann, Founder and Managing Director of RoadSafetyUAE comments: "The nation is challenged to support the government in reducing road traffic fatalities from 5.99/100,000 inhabitants (end 2015) to 3.00 by 2021. In this context, the support of corporation is vital. More and more companies embrace the concept of CSR and they want to educate and protect their eco-system. Corporations have a great asset in their 'touch-points' with staff and external audiences. We are working with our CSR partners, such as Serco Middle East to activate those touch-points with meaningful road safety messages and activities like staff awareness campaigns, staff workshops, staff road safety days, consumer campaigns, research projects, and much more."
"Serco Middle East sets a great example, as they are fully committed to road safety and they create best-practice in touch-points activation and how to pro-actively communicate with their audiences. Serco is also comfortable to share their know-how with other corporations in the UAE and they are looking forward to engage with others to learn from each other. RoadSafetyUAE features Serco's staff video and their bus policy on our platform - www.roadsafetyuae.com/bus-safety/.", Edelmann concludes.
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