In the frame of the seven principles of the ISO 26000 standard, the ISO committee began applying the action plan on 1/1/2014 by applying various actions detailed in the mentioned action plan, taking on the mission of applying the actions directly assigned to it as well as following up the actions assigned to the different departments of the Chamber.

Task: Holding meetings between the Chief executive and the employees (Transparency principle) :

The Chief executive held the following meeting during the months March and April:

·         A meeting with the Human resources department on 16/3/2014.

·         Celebrating the ideal mother (all employees invited) on 20/3/2014.

·         A meeting with both the departments of supplies and planning/follow up on 8/4/2014.

Task: Inviting the Cheif executive, heads of sectors and the head of the union committee to the board meetings, given a 48 hours notice (Transparency principle) :

·         The board did not hold any meetings in the given interval.

·         As for the bureau meeting on 10/4/2014, Mrs. Randa Tawfik (legal dept.) was invited, to clarify some legal issues, as well as one of the HR employees to discuss adminstrative issues.

Task: Notifying personnel of all decrees issued by the board and bureau, as soon as these are issued (implementing the social responsibility principle) :

·         In this regard the committee drew the “Traders’ Charter of Honour”, Put forth by Mrs. Randa Tawfik, and Mr. Ahmed Kamel, after discussing it the votes were in favour of agreeing upon its form. Afterwards the Charter was shown to the Chairman who in turn forwarded it to Mr. Mostafa Ahmed the adminstrative consultant, who agreed as well then passed it to the legal consultant Mr. Monsef Suliman, who finalized and signed it and forwarded it to the chairman who signed it as well.

Afterwards the Charter started being published and distributed to the traders via the following means:

1. The chairman signed the agreement on 1/4/2014 to publish 5000 copies of the charter as a start, these copies were distributed on the traders.
2. The Charter was published on the Chamber’s website after the bureau issued a decree of agreement no. 675 of the year 2014.

Task: Assembling a Committee to follow up the application of the various law, regulations and issued decrees (performance and quality assessment comittee) (The principle of accountability) :

·         In this regard, the chairman issued a decree to assemble the committee, and detailed its tasks, duties and members by the original ISO committee.

·         The decree was numbered 24/2014 issued on 25/2/2014 to assemble the committee.

·         The committee held the first meeting on 12/3/2014 and began assuming its role, second and third meeting were held on 25/3/2014 and 14/4/2014 respectively.

·         The records of these meeting were forwarded to the ISO committee. On 29/4/2014 the members of the ISO committee decided to hold a meeting with the members of the Performance and Evaluation assessment committee in order to clarify the means of application of the given tasks to the latter committee.

·         Regarding the other departments assignments, the following was accomplished by the committee:

Task: Holding Connexion council meetings quarter yearly (Respect for stakeholders interest principle) :

·         The Connexion Council meeting was held three times in the given interval; on 21/1/2014, 4/3/2014 and 3/4/2014.

Task: Enacting regulations to the newly recruited employees (contracts) (Fair usage principle) :

·         The legal department drew these regulations and forwarded it to the ISO committee in the meeting held on 29/4/2014, for discussion.

Task: Desiging a survey questionnaire for the traders to evaluate the degree of their satisfaction with the services offered by the Chamber (Consumer issues principle) :

·         The research department prepared the questionnaire and forwarded it to the ISO committee on 29/4/2014 for discussion.

Ø  The Connexion Council is formed of the heads of all trade branches in the Chamber as well as the Chamber’s own board of directors.

Task: Signing a contract with Janitorial/cleaning service/environmental protection company (Main subject: Environment) :

·         A committee was assembled tasked with placing the conditions and technical specifications of choosing such a company.

Task: Holding educational sessions and conferences to raise the traders’ awareness of the social responsibility aims in relation to the commercial community (Implementing social responsibility principle) :

·         The Retailers Academy in the Chamber contacted the Egyptian Organization for Standardization & Quality to hold in accordance with the National Quality Institute; training courses detailing the social responsibility, and the ISO 26000 standard.

The mentioned organization agreed to train a number of the Chamber’s employees, and ten are being chosen -according to the criteria stated in the organization’s letter of acceptance- to attend these courses.

Task: Creating a call center and offering the traders a hotline service (Consumer issues) :

·         The department of public relations of the Chamber contacted some of the companies offering such services and options are being currently studied.

Task: Planning ethical behavior courses for the Chamber’s employees (Ethical behavior) :

·         The Retailers Academy of the Chamber held the training session involving 50 of the Chamber’s employees in the duration of 27/1/2014 to 17/3/2014.
 

Task: Digital archiving of the employees credentials (Labor practices) :

·         The human resources department detailed its needs to accomplish the task given, being new computers and a scanner, as well as forwarding a request to the IT department about their malfunctioning scanner.

·         A team was assembled to deal with this task after the labor hours, and to fix the scanner to manage the size of the task.

Task: Offering technical support for the new projects by preparing Feasibility studies for the small businesses (Consumer service) :

·         The research department planned a vision for this task, and the entailed needs to execute it and is being studied.

Task: Contracting with a private health care service provider for the Chamber’s employees (Health) :

·         The ISO committee assigned both Mr. Gamal Hamour and Mrs. Randa Tawfik to study the project and provide a report.

Task: Modifying the Chamber’s functional structure – job descriptions and titles (Labor parctices) :

·         The ISO committee discussed assembling a committee to handle this task, especially after adding new departments and sub divisions like the Quality department, Process improvement and supplies.

·         With that the Chamber contacted the ministry of industry and commerce, to add the Excellence center as a department in the Chamber’s structure, and the minister approved by decree number 186/2014.

Task: Offering educational and training courses for the traders periodically (Consumer service) :

·         The Retailers Academy planned such courses as follows :

Ø Besides the general tasks handled by the ISO committee, we shall briefly point out a few improvements as follows :

·         The public relations department in association with the Retailers Academy, certificates department, Research and Divisions departments as well as the website team held a training course detailing the Chamber’s social role in the commercial community for 20 of the Cairo university students on 26/3/2014.

·         The public relations department in the frame of the consumer issues of the standard, signed a protocol the Hitlon administration; offering discounts and special prices to the traders members of the Chamber, and their guests of all nationalities, discount reaches 50% on the following (Ramses Hilton – Alexandria Hilton – Luxour Hilton) during the year 2014.

·         The IT department launched an internal E-mail system for the employees in the frame of the labor practices, to ensure concurrent networking and reaching any employee at any given time efficiently and also to ease notifying employees of any new decrees issued.

·         Finally, a new tab specific to the social responsibility has been created on the Chamber’s website, including the following: (Vision, mission and task of the Chamber – The charter of honour – The ethical behaviour – Reports of the current action plan) and it is planned to publish any news regarding the subject matter in the same location of the website.

Head of the ISO committee

      Mrs. Akeelah Hegab