If you were a white-collar middle manager, in, say a financial institution, you might have got a reasonable retrenchment package, and be making an ok living as a “consultant”, maybe even with your old employer, but you’ve got no benefits, no security, and now the tax man thinks you haven’t got enough clients, and is proposing to tax you as an individual – are you cranky? You bet! And even if you are the CEO, you’re probably not feeling too relaxed and comfortable, either. You know that the average tenure of a CEO these days is 3 – 5 years, so you know you’ve got no option but to work like a dog, and pray that your family remembers your name when it’s all over.

All of this madness happens so that we can feed this mythical beast called the economy. Now you might think that there’s nothing business could, or should, do to buy into any of this, but in my view, if we are remotely part of the problem, then we need to be part of the solution – otherwise Professor Probert, and her colleagues just might figure out a way to do it for us.

So how might we improve our egalitarian manners?

Here’s some tips from Miss Manners Book of Modern Corporate Etiquette.

If you’re planning to remove services from a community, you might take them into your confidence first, and plan together how you might do that with the minimum amount of disruption and bad feeling. I say first, because, frankly, if you wait until everybody really hates you, it’s going to take huge amounts of money and time to repair the damage to your brand.

If you’re convinced you have no alternative but to down-size, then please call your local TAFE, and find out about retraining opportunities for your displaced workers.

If you’re working in one of those old-fashioned, testosterone charged environments where status is measured by the number of hours you work, stop it at once – go home at 6.30, and send your staff home, too.

If your Board has no women on it, don’t insult our intelligence by telling us there just aren’t enough qualified women out there – we’re everywhere – get real!

Give a kid a job – someone helped you get started – it’s time to repay the favour.

Give your firm an environmental audit – find out how you could be a cleaner, greener company.

There is much we can do to improve social cohesion where we work, but I said at the outset that I believe that constructive, optimistic engagement with the communities in which we operate not only builds cohesion, but adds value to our businesses, brands, and reputations.

Communities need our support, and they’ll repay us with a loyalty that the most sophisticated CRM campaign could never give you.

Adopt your local primary school. Our client, Proctor and Gamble, was able to kit out a classroom full of computers for Redfern Primary School, just from superseded and under-utilised computers they already owned – it cost them almost nothing, and their staff volunteered their time to get them updated and installed.

Public education needs your support. Much of what we are proudest of in the Australian tradition, we learned at primary school. It’s where we learned to share, to cope, to adapt, to be respectful of diversity – its usually when we first realise not everyone looks like us, sounds like us, or eats the same foods as us. If public education becomes the dumping ground for the dumb poor, we are all in trouble. Get involved at the micro level – send your marketing manager over to your local school for a couple of hours and share what you know about customer service. Teachers never expected to have to compete for students and they could do with a few tips. Send your maintenance man over for an afternoon to see what needs fixing. Donate superseded office equipment. Suggest your staff volunteer for canteen duty – better still volunteer yourself. Make representations to your MP about school funding. Invite the kids over for a tour. Consider sponsoring a breakfast programme – too many kids still start school hungry.