Hi all,
A small update of my internship at Woodside, Perth.
By having an overall look at my tasks during my internship, I’m realising that my work was mainly focused on the community relationship of Woodside with the Burrup Peninsula communities, such as Karratha and Roebourne (all situated north of Western Australia).
By having an overall look at my tasks during my internship, I’m realising that my work was mainly focused on the community relationship of Woodside with the Burrup Peninsula communities, such as Karratha and Roebourne (all situated north of Western Australia).
Even though it is limited to a specific local area, I’ve seen and understand the reason for such an important number of hours and money spent in community projects.
Business organisations such as Woodside give attention to their community relations for good reason: organisations can exist and make profit as long as the public allows them to exist.
The answer to why the economic well-being of Woodside’s host community is important is that a high value social licence is critical to Woodside’s ability to maximise shareholder value.
Developing and maintaining a long-term relationship with the community where they operate is essential in order to maintain their social licence. Their gas extraction projects are neighbours or part of a nationally heritage listed place due to the large concentration of rock art it contains.
Woodside’s strategy is therefore mainly focused on the identification, management and monitoring of the National Heritage values to get maximum support of their stakeholders, including the Government and the community.
Some projects are focusing on Indigenous education, others on Indigenous jobs (rangers), others on the environment, safety etc…
For me, relying on previous social licence lost scenarios, whether in relation to environmental protection (BP and Deep Water Horizon), ethical behaviour (News Corp and the News of the World), or safety (the Australian live cattle export industry) help me to understand how an organisation should match its behaviour with contemporary community norms.
I still have a lot to learn, this is only the beginning of a promising and exiting career.
My next road trip will be up north to Exmouth – I’ll certainly drive a few more hours to see the densest concentrations of rock engravings in Australia. Now that’s a must!
Alice
2 comments:
Hi Alice,
Congratulations on your internship at Woodside, that is quite an achievement!
I work for Chevron, and I too am learning about the various sponsorships we have with organisations as part of our overall Community Engagement strategy.
Yesterday I was asked to prepare an information sheet on our sponsorship with United Way. They are a not-for-profit organisation which we have been sponsoring since 2010. United Way offer education, training and employment grants to disadvantaged indigenous/non-indigenous children, and also organise volunteering events for companies. So at Chevron, almost every employee volunteers a day of their time annually to do some community service.
Like Woodside, the reason we have chosen to sponsor United Way is to get maximum support from our stakeholders by matching our behaviour with contemporary norms. I think one of the main norms at the moment is assisting indigenous people with access to careers and education.
Enjoy Exmouth, I just went there just recently and also spent a lot of time in Coral Bay, which I fell in love with. If you haven't been there, the wildlife is certainly worth a stop-through.
I hope you enjoy the rest of your time at Woodside. Who knows, perhaps you will end up working there!
Georgie F
Georgie,
Thanks for sharing your experience at Chevron. I do know United Way as it was the 'client' we used for one of our assignment in PR Consultancy last semester.
Woodside is supporting Volunteering WA (United Way WA's competitor) and other organisations such as Surf Life Saving, Royal Flying Doctor Service, West Australian Ballet etc...
My understanding is that in Woodside's comm strategies, we need to think about different ways we can promote a project throughout the community partners and sponsorship programs that they already have.
Say you want to promote an iPad app created by the Indigenous community of Roebourne, as Woodside is sponsorising SciTech, this is a good place to promote the comic to children during the school holidays etc...
Hope you enjoy your time at Chevron!
Cheers
Alice
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