Engaging with our communities

Volunteering and engaging in charity appeals offer employees an opportunity to live our values and put our principles into practice. Employees can supplement the volunteering they choose to do in their free time with one work-day a year during working hours to volunteer on a community project that supports the overall direction of our corporate social responsibility program.

In 2008, we developed our corporate social responsibility policies and guidelines, and a toolkit for volunteers. Any project we undertake should adhere to a few clear principles:

• apply the ‘Triple Bottom Line’ approach, combining economic, environmental, and social goals
• be credible, sustainable, and long-term
• be in line with our corporate strategy and identity
• build on the strong record of our parent companies
• provide for a corporate identity in line with our values.

We have made efforts to provide opportunities for extended engagement in programs that promote sustainable development. Our main areas of focus for volunteering and community involvement are rural connectivity, disaster relief and preparedness, improving access to education, and the environment.

The naming competition for our community engagement programs attracted more than 2,000 entries from employees. The winning entry ‘Uniting communities’ reflects the contribution the company makes to society by bringing people together through communications.

Nokia Siemens Networks employees are already volunteering in community involvement projects in many countries and we expect an increasing number of people to take advantage of these opportunities in the future.
 

Matching employee donations

In 2008, we continued our parent companies’ tradition of matching employee donations for disaster relief. We matched funds raised by employees for those affected by the Sichuan earthquake in China, for the Red Cross and Save the Children in response to the Myanmar cyclone, and for the flooding in Bihar, India. See disaster relief and preparedness for more information.
 

Volunteering initiatives around the world

In 2008, Nokia Siemens Networks employees took part in a number of volunteering projects, including:

• India
  In India, employees were involved in school reconstruction (together with Bharti Foundation) and remote teaching via networks. Employees also volunteered their time in a Saturday Skill School as part of the “Bridge the Gap” program with Swechha, an NGO that aims to teach children in six schools in the New Delhi district connected through an intranet.
• China
  In China, staff helped out with the rebuilding of Chifeng Middle School in Chengdu which was destroyed by the Sichuan earthquake.
• Lebanon
  Employees in Beirut spent a day in various orphanages and brought goods to children (owing to the multicultural nature of Lebanese society, orphanages run by various cultural groups were visited during the festive period where Muslim and Christian communities alike celebrate the season).
• Ukraine
  Here, employees visited an orphanage in the small Ukrainian town of Novograd-Volynsky, bringing urgently required medicine and hygienic supplies purchased with proceeds from employee donations.
• Hungary
  Employees in Budapest took inspiration from the new “Uniting Communities” slogan and brought toys to children who had to spend Christmas in hospital.

Case study