SMILE - Spread Magic through Initiative, Love and Enthusiasm
We believe that our business has a responsibility to all our stakeholders. As a profit-focused company, that means stock-holders, customers, employees and partners, but also includes the community in which we operate.
We are a global business so we have to think carefully about what “our community” means. How do we define this in way that allows us to make a tangible difference and not be overwhelmed by the scale of need in all the places we operate?
Once upon a time, businesses and their philanthropic contributions stayed in their local community. Profits were reinvested locally, and business owners heard and responded to local feedback. Global companies like ours can’t just invest in the community local to the CEO or head office. We needed to find a way to integrate into our communities in all our locations so we created the Integreon Community Action program. Community Action provides Integreon associates with a vehicle for making a difference in the community in which they live, learn and work, wherever in the world that happens to be.
One of the ways Integreon supports Community Action is by committing to giving paid time to people who want to volunteer. We give 1% of our associates’ time to volunteering by ‘matching’ their personal volunteer efforts with up to 6 paid volunteer days a year. Volunteering and being active members of the community has helped our associates develop skills, improve their self-esteem, work better as a team and feel better about the company that they work for. It makes people feel that our company is grounded and that there’s more to life than just themselves. This is a simple, yet impactful act for a company to take.
Throughout the organization we are finding that we attract and retaining excellent, well-rounded, hard working and compassionate people because of our commitment to corporate citizenship. We also find that other successful companies like to do business with companies that have values similar to their own.