Introduction
In this report, the company that will be reviewed is Seek, an online job advertising company headquartered in Australia. Seek's operations extend beyond Australia and into several other countries, including New Zealand, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Brazil, and Mexico, as it strives to become a global leader in the labor market (Seek, n.d).
Seek's mission is centered around helping individuals achieve more fulfilling and productive working lives while aiding organizations in their success. Seek is a company that provides services to solve real problems for its consumers and connects the right job with the right people (Seek, n.d).
With over 3,700 employees across multiple continents and recognition as one of Australia's Top Ten Places to Work In Technology, Seek is a formidable player in the advertising, arts, and media industries (Seek, n.d) From 2021 - 2023, Seek was recognized as one of Australia’s Top Ten Places to Work In Technology in the AFR BOSS Best Places to Work awards (Seek, n.d). The Job Board category has several contenders, but Indeed, LinkedIn Jobs, and Glassdoor Jobs are the top three competitors (6sense, n.d). Seek is focused on expanding and enhancing its unification platform, launching an Asia rebranding campaign, and establishing a budget-based contract structure. Additionally, Seek Asia introduced AI-powered push notifications for short-term strategies while continuing to invest in long-term strategies.(Seek annual report, 2022) The company's financial standing is robust, as by the graph below:
Corporate Social Responsibility
In running its business, Seek implements several programs as a form of corporate social responsibility. The program that Seek runs is apart from being a form of corporate social responsibility, it is also a company sustainability effort. The three programs Seek runs, includes;
- Seek is dedicated to "social responsibility" in regards to "climate change". The company is fully committed to achieving carbon neutrality for its core business operations across Seek's multinational footprint for FY2022. SEEK ANZ has attained carbon neutral certification for FY2021 from Climate Active as a result of implementing this program. The program run by Seek is of high quality, as evidenced by the certification it has received.
- Seek's second social responsibility centers around the environment and specifically involves the implementation of the Net Zero Pathway program. This program serves as a strategic tool for reducing emissions and creating a pathway towards net zero. Seek is fully committed to reaching net zero across all scope emissions by 2023. By prioritizing environmental improvement, Seek is taking proactive steps that benefit both the environment and its business. This is especially important given the current state of the environment, which continues to deteriorate
- Seek's third priority is centered around ensuring fair treatment for all individuals. The program aims to promote human rights by implementing fair hiring practices. Within SEEK Asia, Seek strives for responsible job advertising that prioritizes safety and equality. Seek remains committed to protecting job seekers from discriminatory or unsafe job postings, and actively works to address deceptive recruitment practices. To achieve this goal, Seek has implemented a range of automated controls to verify the legitimacy of job ads and hirers, while also appointing a fair hiring leader in SEEK Asia. This program has helped to alleviate public concerns around potential human rights violations and discriminatory hiring practices (Birchall, 2021).
Seek's commitment to corporate social responsibility is evident in its programs, which prioritize environmental and ethical issues. The company actively participates in addressing environmental challenges through two programs that demonstrate its support for sustainability. Additionally, Seek's third program focuses on humanity, reflecting the company's ethical practices in reducing and overcoming human rights issues for all of its customers. These programs not only serve as a means of fulfilling Seek's corporate social responsibility, but also provide a competitive advantage in terms of business value (Liu et al., 2023).
DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION POLICY
Seek is committed to providing an inclusive culture that values diversity and equity. This is reflected in the Board's considerations of its composition. This includes ensuring the right mix and representation of skills and experience are present, along with the diversity of backgrounds and experiences to bring different perspectives and enhance decision-making. SEEK's Board intended to maintain a level of above 30% of directors of each gender. (Seek, n.d) The Board's measurable objectives – established adequate to SEEK's Diversity and Inclusion Policy for achieving gender diversity in the composition of senior executives and the workforce (Seek, n.d). Representation of women and men on the Executive Leadership Team is 50:50. Seek also to have an active program supporting gender pay equity and increased female participation in technology.
Seek's management addresses diversity, and equity, which creates a good inclusion policy. Seek has been trying to implement policies at its company in this regard. This is an added value for Seek in running its business. As of this modern era, issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion are still a scourge in the world of work (Norbash & Kadom, 2020). Apart from that, it can be said that good company management in overcoming and managing these three things is a smart strategy as it takes advantage of the potential of these three things (Olzmann, 2020). By using existing diversity, equity, and inclusion as important elements.
An example of an inclusion policy in accordance with the program implemented by Seek is a training program that provides opportunities for employees to adapt. Seek has done both of these things:
- Seek provides induction to new employees to introduce them to the company culture and standards of behavior while working at Seek (Seek Diversity and Inclusion Policy, 2017). This will foster a sense of appreciation and improve employee performance because new employees are given the opportunity to adapt to being part of Seek (Heuvel, 2020).
- Seek encourages all employees to participate in training programs to improve their skills without any discrimination. It helps employees acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for them to perform their jobs satisfactorily (Armstrong, 2020) and fosters a sense of equality between employees,
Influence of AI and Visualisation
Benefits:
- Enhanced Matching – For companies like Seek, the existence of AI will help improve the services that Seek provides. AI can improve the accuracy of job matching by analyzing job postings and resumes more effectively, leading to better job recommendations for candidates and employers. AI can improve accuracy in identifying compatible matches since it is capable of processing enormous amounts of information efficiently to find related things between the candidates (Mentoring, 2023).
Challenges:
- Data Privacy - AI systems often require large amounts of data to operate effectively. The collection of personal and sensitive data can raise concerns about user privacy. Addressing these data privacy issues requires a combination of technical, legal, and ethical measures. Seek must have robust data protection policies, transparent data handling practices, and rigorous security measures in place to ensure that AI systems respect user privacy (Toummi et al., 2018). Additionally, staying informed about evolving data privacy regulations and standards is essential to remain compliant and maintain user trust.
- Bias and Fairness - AI algorithms can inadvertently perpetuate biases in data. Ensuring fairness and equity in AI decision-making is a privacy issue, particularly when these decisions affect individuals. (Manyika et al., 2019). This would conflict with Seek's principles, therefore this would be a challenge for Seek if it were to implement and utilize AI for its business service programs.
Stakeholder Map
Employees – The use of AI will help SEEK's staff, who may be their work directly affected by AI implementation. Where employees will feel helped and work more efficiently.
- Customers – Through the application of AI to the Seek service, customers who use Seek will feel changes in the service for the better. For example, the fast response provided by the Seek service.
- Investors – If Seek uses AI, for investors this has the potential for business development. Where this can improve the company's stock value.
- Regulators – From the regulatory side, seeing the existence of AI requires them to be more aware and create policies that attempt to prevent the negative impacts that AI can have.
References
Armstong, M. (2020). ;Handbook of Human Resouces Management Practice'. Kogan Page.
Birchall, D. (2021). ;Human Right and Business Ethics p. Encyclopaedia of Business Ethics, Forthcoming.
Huevel et al. (2020). 'How do Employees Adapt to Organizational Change? The Role of Meaning-making and Work Engagement'. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 23(e56): 1-16.
Ilkka T, Cabrera M, Vuorikari R and Punie Y (2018) 'The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Learning, Teaching and Education', JRC Science for Policy Report, doi:10.2760/12297
Manyika et al. (2019). What do WE do About that Biases in AI?. Harvard Business Reviw, retrieved from https://hbr.org/2019/10/what-do-we-do-about-the-biases-in-ai,
Mentoring. (2023). Have you herd about Ai-based matching Algorithms. Mentoring Complete.com, retrieved fromhttps://www.mentoringcomplete.com/have-you-heard-about-ai-based-matching-algorithms/ https://hbr.org/2019/10/what-do-we-do-about-the-biases-in-ai
Norbash, A. & Kadom, N. (2020). The Business Case for Diversity and Inclusion. Journal of the American College of Radiology, 17(5).
Olzmann, J. A. (2020). Diversity Through Equity and Inclusion: The Responsibility Belongs to All of Us. Molecular Biology of the Cel, 31(25). Doi : 10.1091/mbc.E20-09-0575
Seek (n.d.). About Seek. Seek.com, retrieved from https://www.seek.com.au/about/
Seek Annual Report. (2022). Seek Annual Report 2022. Wcsecure.weblink.com, retrieved from https://wcsecure.weblink.com.au/pdf/SEK/02583802.pdf
Seek (n.d.). Diversity and Inclusion Policy. Seek.com, retrieved from https://www.seek.com.au/content/media/Diversity-and-Inclusion-Policy.pdf
6sense. (n.d.). Market Share of Seek. 6sence.com, retrieved from https://6sense.com/tech/job-board/seek-market-share
Self Reflection
Completing this assignment has encouraged me to think critically, analyze and be creative. I have strengthened my ability to evaluate various critical principles in business such as CRS, diversity, equity, inclusion policy, and the influence of AI and visualization on business. One of the requirements was to use Adobe Express, which I was previously unfamiliar with. However, I now realize that it is a digital tool that can be useful for my future assignments. This assignment taught me the importance of time management and commitment. Managing time efficiently helps us achieve better results by providing the opportunity to review work before submitting it. Completing the task not only strengthened my skills but also gave me a valuable understanding of how Seek became the leading global labour market. Seek takes responsibility for environmental sustainability and human rights, which is proof of their success. While studying their Corporate Social Responsibility implementation, I was inspired by the importance of ethics in business and the essential role of CSR in environmental and social factors. After analyzing Seek's approach to corporate social responsibility. I have come to appreciate the significance of ethical considerations in the business world and understand the crucial role of corporate social responsibility in environmental and social well-being. Corporate social responsibility can be a powerful tool for promoting sustainability and ethical practices in both companies and the environment.
This assignment has influenced me to think critically and creatively and I could say that it was a valuable experience. I have become more interested in exploring this learning material and am motivated to create innovative ideas that help the social and corporate environment. This has also influenced my dreams of the type of job I will occupy in the future. In conclusion, this assignment has had a positive impact on me by making my abilities develop, improving my analyzing skills and motivating awareness of interests in the social environment.