The Company
MAS Holdings is one of Sri Lanka’s largest apparel manufacturers, employing more than 40,700 people in 28 factories in 8 countries. Annual revenues in 2006 were US$700 million. Each year, MAS manufactures 50 million bras and is Victoria’s Secret’s largest supplier. The company is privately-held and owned by the Amalean family.
Background
In Sri Lanka, 85 percent of the textile industry workforce is female and approximately 350,000 women work in 848 factories. Textile exports total approximately US$2.8 billion per annum, accounting for over 50 percent of Sri Lanka’s export revenues.
High unemployment in rural areas and the displacement of people due to the civil unrest means that many young women become their family’s primary or sole breadwinner. The women work away from home or abroad to send money to their families. Without bank accounts, the women have to rely on their relatives to protect any cash savings they’ve acquired until they come home.
Female garment workers are stereotyped as “Juki Girls” – a derogatory name that comes from a popular brand of sewing machine – and they come from rural villages and move to the free trade zones to find work in the garment factories for roughly US$2.20 per day. Since they have moved away from their families, many young women live in crowded hostels and have to deal with life issues, many of them for the first time. Many do not have proper nutrition or reliable transportation to work.
From the beginning, the Amalean brothers rejected every element of the sweatshop model. When they founded MAS, they worked on the shop floor, supervising the lines. They believed in the workers’ dignity and felt that workers would be more productive in a comfortable, air-conditioned environment. The Amaleans wanted to be able to eat in the same canteen, use the same restrooms and transportation as their workers. Rather than forcing their 90 percent female workforce to relocate to the city away from their families, MAS built its plants in the rural villages.
Launching “Go Beyond – Championing Women’s Empowerment” – November 2003
|
English Language Classes
|
Doing the “right thing” has always been at the core of MAS Holdings’ philosophy. MAS has provided its workforce decent working conditions from its inception two decades ago, long before Corporate Social Responsibility became a corporate buzzword. With a workforce of almost 90 percent women, and where 80 percent of the product line comprises women’s intimatewear, it is considered only good business practice to secure the welfare of women within the group and, through them, within the community at large.
In November 2003, a program called “MAS Women Go Beyond” was launched to empower employees and impact communities by championing the cause of women’s empowerment in society. The program also focuses on ensuring employees’ career advancement, strengthening their work-life balance and rewarding excellence.
|
Computer Training
|
Under the program, all 18 apparel manufacturing Strategic Business Units (SBUs) are required to develop the Go Beyond program into a three-point framework which includes:
Supporting career advancement in Information Technology, English language and Leadership;
Initiatives that strengthen work-life balance of employees by acquiring skills and knowledge in the area of health, hygiene, sports and handicrafts; and
Quarterly and annual program to reward excellence of high-achievers plant-wise, to create role models for others to emulate.
A Certificate program focusing on hygiene, health and personal grooming has been developed and implemented in collaboration with Unilever. Further certificate programs teaching IT, English, Managing Personal Finance, Leadership skills and Emotional Intelligence are being developed.
|
2006 Empowered Women of the Year Awards
|
“Empowered Woman of the Year” Award Ceremony
The annual “Empowered Women of the Year” awards are a focus of the “Go Beyond” program, which recognizes and rewards women who have faced and overcome great challenges to achieve excellence and provide inspiration for others.
Victoria’s Secret and GAP Inc., both strategic customers of MAS, have shown their support of the “Go Beyond” initiative through the sponsorship of the winners’ awards over the past three years since its launch.
Creating Ambassadors of Inspiration – February 2007
As the next step, a program was organized for all “Go Beyond Empowered Women” from 2004 – 2006 which will help prepare them to be role models and ambassadors for progressive empowerment in their workplaces and communities.
|
Role Model Development Program
|
Recognizing the multiple roles women hold – as employees and care givers in a family and society – the program was structured around developing emotional intelligence to successfully balance these multiple roles, skills relating to public speaking and tapping their internal strengths. A booklet capturing the inspiring life stories of these empowered women will be published annually.
Program Implementation and Impact
The MAS “Go Beyond” program is one element of the MAS Strategic CSR framework which was developed in 2003 based on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development definition of CSR. Three of the company’s focused strategic CSR initiatives are:
- Employees and families: MAS Women Go Beyond Program – empowering female employees;
- Community: GAP Go Beyond Program – empowering women and youth in the communities where we operate through education on the fundamentals of sustainable development and consumption (in partnership with the UNEP youthXchange program); and
- Society: championing women’s empowerment in the industry.
Market research conducted in June 2006 by LMRB (a market research company) reflected a positive change in the personal lives of up to 63 percent of women at the supervisory grade and 71 percent of women at the worker grade across the Group as a direct result of the MAS Go Beyond Program.
“Go Beyond” was featured as the cover page story in World Business in October 2006: MAS has set the global apparel industry standard for compliance by developing Women Go Beyond, a programme to educate and empower its 92 percent female workforce. Most corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes have little to do with a company’s strategy, but MAS is trying to differentiate itself strategically from a horde of low-cost competitors throughout the developing world.
