COMMUNITY

EMPLOYEE VOLUNTEERISM

We encourage staff volunteering on an individual or team basis. We believe that active employee volunteerism not only helps the community but contributes to the holistic development of our people in terms of empathy, perspective and character building.

We encourage our staff to work with our partner beneficiaries and take on a more active role in our communities. Besides giving our employee one day of paid volunteer leave each year, we encourage our business units to adopt VolunTeaming, our concept of teambuilding with a CSR or volunteering element, where our employees volunteer together as a department (see story on Bringing Joy to Children with Special Needs).

In FY2015, our employees contributed a total of 26,614 hours (Singtel 15,109 hours, Optus 11,505 hours) to community and environmental projects in Singapore and Australia.

For example, 2,200 Optus employees have volunteered over 22,000 hours and supported more than 6,200 students and school leaders under the ABCN programme since 2005. Optus is a founding member of ABCN, which provides practical support through a range of mentoring programs to students and teachers in areas of high need.

During the year, Singtel joined a global movement IMPACT 2030, a business-led effort that aims to bring together a global coalition of private sector leaders and other stakeholders to expand and encourage corporate and employee volunteering activities and address the United Nations’ Development Agenda.

In Singapore, we are represented on the Volunteer Resource Committee spearheaded by the National Council of Social Service, a movement to promote staff volunteering among companies. We also hosted the first CSR roundtable discussion on corporate volunteerism with other like-minded companies.G4-16