Creating Impact through Sustainable Action with Employee Volunteering
SAP focuses on digitally transforming the business of customers into intelligent enterprises. We also follows an unwavering goal to improve and impact people’s lives while addressing the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG’s).
Powering Opportunity through Digital Inclusion and Connecting Employees with Purpose is an part of the DNA at SAP, and is of our higher purpose of helping the world run better and improving people’s lives.
As Bill McDermott, CEO, SAP aptly puts it, "It's all about that emotional connection, the human connection, and the people power coming together fundamentally to change the world."Connecting Employees with Purpose
https://youtu.be/YBmBsqd31wA
- Every month we explore and provide opportunities to explore ways of undertaking new volunteering activities to help the less privileged. Our belief is that every day, week, month is a service month. Month of Service is all aboutconnecting employees with purpose — which is one of the driving forces under CSR strategy. In 2019, SAP CSR worldwide adopted the ‘Purpose-Action-Impact’ approachas the Month of Service strategy.
- We believe in responsible living and giving back to society at large through meaningful engagements. Participation is not the only aim, but being sensitive, raising awareness about socio-economically less privileged and our environment and issues of national and global importance, is very critical. The idea is to show empathy with people on a large scale to create a multiplier effect and impact more number of lives or conserve our environment
- For SAP, the business aspect is definitely important, and so is expanding the socially responsible initiatives. We actively leverage our resources — human capital and technology — through skilled and traditional volunteering. We do not stop at intention, we follow the active policy of connecting employee with purpose. And we formally train employees to be more effective as “volunteer”. The objective of the formal training is (a) to sensitize SAP volunteers about local needs thereby helping them to formulate programs aligning with local needs, (b) to create and expand the network of volunteers, volunteer leads, who in turn, can independently drive volunteering engagement.
Month of Service 2018: The Outcome
- Touching lives meaningfully is sometimes more crucial than the scale or the platform. 6,803 SAP volunteers dedicated 34,160 hours and impacted 154,428 lives in the month of October and November. These are not merely the numbers but our culture and what we are as a purpose drive company. Employees from across various places viz., Bengaluru, Gurugram, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Dehradun and Pune actively participated and contributed through their time, commitment and passion.
- The employee volunteering and participation is representative of all SAP entities viz., SAP Labs India, SAP India (Field and Consulting organizations), Ariba Technologies, Sybase Software, and Concur Technologies. Employees and leadership across the board vehemently contributed to various causes.
Purpose | Impact | Action
- Broadly, all activities under the Month of Service are categorized under five major pillars, including ‘Sports4good’, ‘Inclusion’, ‘Health’, ‘Environment & Sustainability’, and ‘Education’. Some of the sub-activities under these include food grain donation, run for a cause, happiness visit to schools, old age homes and orphanages, blood donation camps, swachh bharat activities, soft skills sessions and so on.
- SAP volunteers contributed their efforts towards uplifting the underprivileged and differently-abled through several inclusion activities.
- 36 volunteers participated in projects aimed at enhancing education as well as skill development; 37 volunteers worked for inclusion. 12 volunteers focused on health and hygiene sensitization, 15 of them worked towards environment and sustainability, 22 of them supported donation drives and 3 of them led ‘Sports4good’ — an effort to motivate individuals to participate in sports activities for a healthy lifestyle. 122 volunteers participated in on-field activities, while 3 of them conducted virtual sessions.
- Food Donation is another drive by employees of SAP Ariba was another passionate example, where we donated food for 125,000 children : READ MORE HERE
- Importantly all the initiatives are aligned with several UN-Sustainable Development Goals, as highlighted below:
Month of Service and IMPACT 2030
Our efforts are on an ever-growing mode esp. with the concept of year-long service. While we believe in working in the present, we believe in having a vision for the future. As Alexandra van der Ploeg, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at SAP SE and IMPACT 2030 Executive Committee member said, “There’s incredible value in looking at new ways the private sector can contribute to our sustainable development goals through corporate volunteering on a global scale”. Month of Service is one definite channel for us to catalyze our efforts towards Impact 2030.
IMPACT 2030 aims to convene hundreds of partner companies, mobilize private sector volunteer networks around the world, and collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders. IMPACT 2030 reflects SAP’s longstanding innovative approach to give back to the community through its employees, which includes the company’s flagship initiative of Month of Service. With November ends, this is not the end of the Month of Service journey but only the reinforcement of commitment towards the service to the society and the nation.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
