“The best things in life are free” certainly holds true for love. But as Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG) recently discovered, corporate social responsibility (CSR) doesn’t have to cost a cent, either. Last November, PBG enrolled more than 27,000 of its U.S. employees in the Wireless AMBER Alert Program, so that they can receive urgent public bulletins about abducted children—usually the abductor’s license plate—via their company-issued cell phones. PBG is the first company to sign up its employees en masse.
Choosing this form of CSR appealed to the corporation because of today’s tough economic climate. But its corporate culture also encourages giving back to the communities in which the company works, says John Berisford, PBG’s senior vice president of human resources. “We run a very decentralized business that operates in local communities like Carson City, Nev., and Flint, Mich.—and we care a lot about these communities. We’re always looking for ways to give back.”
PBG invites employees to set the company’s giving agenda, Berisford says. Employees can bounce their giving ideas off chairman and CEO Eric Foss through his monthly column in PBG’s employee newsletter, Thirst, or approach their managers with good CSR ideas. Eric Gage, a PBG technical support team leader, did the latter after hearing a radio announcement that anyone who texts can receive wireless AMBER Alerts simply by registering at www.wirelessamberalerts.org. “The company had just distributed company cell phones to all employees, so I thought, what a great way to get Amber Alerts out there,” Gage says. “My manager jumped on board right away, and from there it went really quickly.”
Gage reports that PBG employees, each set up to receive AMBER Alerts from five ZIP codes, have already begun receiving the text messages—and that makes him proud, given the greater likelihood that children will be recovered if located within three hours of their abduction. Indeed, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, AMBER Alerts, also broadcast on local television and radio stations as well as highway signs, have helped recover more than 400 abducted children in the United States since the program’s inception in 1997.
Read more stories by Jennifer Roberts.