Home plus leads trend with unprecedented initiative
This is the second of a five-part series on the corporate social responsibility efforts of Home plus, which has proactively sought after the initiative since its launch in 1999. ― ED.
By Kim Tae-gyu
Kim Geon-woo, an elementary school student, is a soccer phenomenon. Yet, he used to hate playing the sports, which his father asked to start at the age of six.
In particular, the nine-year-old did not like high-handed coaches, or the typical Korean trainers who stress disciplines ahead of the sports itself.
However, things changed after Kim joined the eParan Youth Football Club last year and by now, he really jockeys to participate in the training sessions even though he has to spend four hours on the road every day.
``We live in Incheon. Accordingly, it took about two hours to reach the eParan club
located in northwestern Seoul. It is not an easy job to take training at the distant eParan club five days a week,’’ his father Kim Young-ho said.
``Yet, my son looks forward to playing at the eParan club, which adopts Western-style autonomous systems. As a prominent forward of the elite team, my son is finally enjoying the sports.’’
Kim concluded that the eParan club changed his son once and for all ― he was somewhat introversive in the past but is now very extroverted so that he could be elected as a class president this year.
Things are similar for Jeon Young-woong, also a nine-year-old right wing of the A team at the eParan club.
``Before my son joined the eParan team, he had a sense of inferiority due to a short height. However, his disadvantage became an advantage in football ― he is found to be very nimble thanks to the small frame,’’ his farther Jeon Dae-seong said.
``Currently, he is very popular among his classmates, who badly want to learn football skills from my son. For the first time in four years, he was picked as a vice president at his class in 2012.’’
Unique football club
The two are outstanding examples, which demonstrate how sports can change people’s lives, the very goal of the eParan Youth Football Club that debuted in early 2011 supported by Home plus, the country’s No. 2 discount chain.
Not only Kim and Jeon but also other members of the club, which comprises more than 100 young students, express similar satisfaction on it.
Against this backdrop, watchers have come up with questions on how the organization created by eParan Foundation was able to achieve the exploits of positively changing so many kids as many others couldn’t do so.
eParan Foundation Secretary General Seol Do-won, who played an integral role in making the youth team along with Home plus Chairman Lee Seung-han, picks its unique system as a secret.
``eParan club is basically about football but there are more than that. We have courses on how to develop characters, safeguard environments and share no matter what they have,’’ Seol said.
``On top of that, we also teach how to be creative. Such approaches appear to make young students to be good at football and become respectable citizens as well. In fact, those two are our main targets.’’
Its head coach Lee Eul-yong concurs. He was a national team player, who was the fixture in the country’s unprecedented performances of advancing to the semifinals in the 2002 World Cup co-hosted by Korea and Japan.
Later, he moved to Turkey’s professional league and was also a star in the K-League here before joining the eParan entity in 2011.
``I did not like conventional youth football clubs, which tend to twist arms of students for good performances. I always wanted to let kids know that football is fun,’’ Lee said.
``And the eParan team was a perfect fit to do so and that is why I opted to work here. My students really enjoy spending time here. Two of my three sons are also members of the team.’’
Lee contended that other youth football clubs cannot follow the eParan style because the former cares about profits.
``A majority of youth football clubs are charged. To continue to attract students whose parents are ready to spend money, they should maintain good records in national tournaments,’’ he said.
``As a result, their coaches are tempted to train students with a heavy hand for immediate records. But eParan is different because its costs are covered by Home plus.’’
Yet, eParan teams are not second-tier ones ― they invite coaches from the English Football Association so that they learn advanced skills of the football powerhouse.
Thanks in no small part to such programs, they topped the podium of the youth tourneys several times over the past year.
Birth of eParan
After setting up Home plus in 1999, one of first missions of its founding Chairman Lee was to make a character for its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.
Back then, Home plus competitors and even insiders cast suspicious eyes on Lee’s initiative because they thought Lee was ready to splurge on areas, which seemingly has little to do with bottom lines.
But Lee forged ahead with the idea to generate eParan, which he says is the world’s first dedicated CSR character.
``Since its establishment in May 1999, Home plus created eParan character and started carrying out social contribution activities in earnest,’’ Lee recollected. ``Many retailers seemed puzzled, finding it hard to understand why a company would develop a character rather than focusing on sale.’’
He went one step further by practicing the “Four-Love” campaigns as well as building the eParan Foundation and social responsibility programs on the firm belief that companies cannot thrive without stressing CSR.
``The `New Eco Circle of Business’ has emerged where companies cannot be admired unless it fulfills its social responsibility in addition to focusing on company growth,’’ he said.
``More than a decade has passed and many people have started to understand.’’
Currently, the eParan Foundation takes the center stage in leading a variety of CSR activities of Home plus since its start in the late 2000s.
For instance, it supports more than 100 welfare centers, which look after underprivileged children, across the country every year via offering a flurry of educational courses.
And its efforts bear fruits as Seo Yoo-jin at an Incheon-based welfare center reports.
``A 10-year-old child from a broken home was always a loner and lacked self-confidence. But things changed last year after he participated in the magic school provided by the eParan Foundation,’’ Seo said.
``He became quite skillful at some magical tricks through the 12-week courses, which helped him gain popularity among his schoolmates. He could get along with his friends thereafter.’’
Four-Love campaigns
The flagship activities of eParan Foundation is Four-Love campaigns involving such areas as environment, neighbors, sharing and families.
In line with the growing concerns on climate change and global warming, Home plus put the environmental issues on the front burner even before the eParan Foundation came to town.
In 2008, Home plus opened the country’s first green store, which was designed to halve carbon emission and cut down on the energy consumption by up to 40 percent.
The Seoul-based outfit, the 100-percent affiliate of U.K. giant TESCO, strives to reduce carbon dioxide emission by 50 percent by 2020.
Its second focus is neighbor and Home plus does care about its neighbor as amply demonstrated by its extended education schools, which are available at its 100-plus superstores nationwide.
Currently, more than 6,000 instructors take charge of as many as 400 different courses at the extended school programs.
And such an approach not only helps the public awareness of Home plus but also jacks up its profitability because participants of the extended education schools are found to purchase 2.1 times more than ordinary clients.
The third topic is about sharing ― over the past five years, Home plus donated around 1 million items, which are worth up to 10 billion won, to the society.
And its employees volunteer to work for local communities for tens of thousands of hours per annum.
The final theme of the Four-Love campaign is family and Home plus notes that it considers family life as important as work life of employees.
For one, it spearheaded the “nanny development program,” aimed at tackling the plunging birth rate of the Asia’s fourth-largest economy, which has been dubbed as a serious challenge.
After completing the courses, those nannies are assigned to childcare centers to build up a working experience before taking genuine jobs so that Korea has better infrastructures for rearing children.
It has also introduced a set of family events such as family farm, family book camp, flexible working hours and e-learning for family members, which helped the satisfaction of employees.
Its care about family got official acknowledgement as the company was certified as the best family-friendly company by the Ministry of Gender, Equality and Family in 2010.