Engagement

Corporate volunteering

Orange Polska has the biggest corporate volunteering programme in Poland, which has been running for 18 years. With an open heart, our employees share their knowledge, skills and experience with others, getting involved in the Orange Foundation’s social programmes.

Our volunteers also carry out their own projects for local communities with the support of the Orange Foundation. Every year we organise a grant competition in which our volunteers can obtain funds for implementing their ideas for helping others. Furthermore, the Orange Foundation provides organisational and technical support through the volunteering co-ordinator. Each year, the ten most committed persons, nominated by their work colleagues, are granted the Together for Others awards by the Foundation.

Orange Polska’s employees can use a dedicated application to follow and keep up to date on the initiatives they can join as volunteers, submit their own proposals and publish reports on their projects.

Our volunteers act individually or in groups, often also during team-building events. They teach children how to use the Internet safely and deal with hate on the net, help them to take the first steps in using computers and virtual tools, and introduce kids to coding. In addition, they help children through various activities at children’s homes and local foundations and organisations; support local communities through a range of nitiatives from refurbishment works to charity auctions; and assist senior citizens.

On average, 3,000 of our people get involved in charity projects each year. Since 2020, the scope and nature of volunteering activities have changed due to safety restrictions and the number of volunteers has fallen. Whereas in 2020 volunteers were mainly involved in pandemic-related initiatives, last year they returned to other activities as well. In the spring they carried out charity picnics, events, cleaning and renovation works and numerous #OrangeGoesGreen initiatives. They also recommenced classes presenting Internet safety rules to children and teenagers in locations where schools had shifted back from remote learning. Including classes on healthy digital habits, our volunteers reached over 1,300 children in 2021. Furthermore, a record number of 167 teams joined our Christmas initiative. In total, 1,200 Orange volunteers delivered holiday aid to children’s homes, day centres, senior citizens and the chronically ill.

Orange Polska is a partner of the Pro Bono Coalition. The goal of the Coalition is to discuss social involvement among business leaders, and to promote pro-social attitudes and behaviours by showing positive examples of top managers who share their time, experience, knowledge and skills as part of voluntary campaigns. Orange Polska is represented in the Coalition by Jacek Kowalski, Management Board Member in charge of Human Capital.

1,958

volunteers

15,000

volunteering hours

Orange Polska’s employee volunteer programme has been granted the Top Quality Corporate Volunteering Certificate, confirming its compliance with the Corporate Volunteering Charter. It means that we abide by the fundamental principles and protect the values of volunteering, and support our employees in their social initiatives. This has been confirmed with an audit by experts of the Certification Committee established by the Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland. The audit included a review of survey results and documents as well as face-to-face conversations with the volunteering co-ordinator and several volunteers.

Employee innovations

Orange Polska has launched internal innovation incubators – dedicated programmes to encourage employees to submit innovations, provide tools and support for innovation development, and award and implement the best ideas.

Our Listening and Responding Clubs are a comprehensive platform for the implementation of innovations in the Company. We provide know-how and tools to our employees and guide them through the entire process from an original idea to its implementation. Each employee can initiate an improvement in a dedicated in-house application, find people willing to co-operate and successfully carry out the project from A to Z. An additional incentive is a company-wide competition to celebrate and reward the best initiatives. Club Members can also present their ideas to the Management Board. In 2021, 184 Listening and Responding Clubs were established involving almost 800 employees. Their improvements are concerned with various areas, including processes, technologies, robotisation, savings and customeroriented solutions, but also work environment, innovations and environmental protection.

Another corporate incentive for employee innovations is the Wall of Ideas. This virtual wall is used for submitting ideas for innovations in two areas: customer experience and employee experience. These ideas are commented and voted ‘yes’ or ‘no’ by other employees. The ideas which Orange Polska’s employee volunteer programme has been granted the Top Quality Corporate Volunteering Certificate, confirming its compliance with the Corporate Volunteering Charter. It means that we abide by the fundamental principles and protect the values of volunteering, and support our employees in their social initiatives. This has been confirmed with an audit by experts of the Certification Committee established by the Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland. The audit included a review of survey results and documents as well as face-to-face conversations with the volunteering co-ordinator and several volunteers. score 100 or more (42% of all proposals on average) are then reviewed by business owners. Each newly submitted idea has the ‘Active’ status. This status is regularly updated to ‘Under review’ (by the business owner), ‘In progress’ (positively reviewed by the business owner and earmarked for implementation), ‘Delivered’ (implemented) or ‘Archived’ (not to be delivered, because its score was too low and/ or the business owner decided so). On average, 22% of the ideas scoring 100 or more are ultimately implemented. Furthermore, Topical Challenges are announced on the Wall of Ideas. In 2021, we carried out three challenges, namely regarding eco-friendly initiatives, services for senior citizens and challenging myths about 5G harmfulness. Last year we set a record for employee involvement: 329 employees submitted 634 ideas (up 141% year-on-year). These generated almost 18,000 interactions (13,500 votes and 4,200 comments) from 2,500 Orange Polska employees (up 56% year-on-year).

Hackathon is a new initiative for our employees that promotes innovation and co-operation as well as machine learning and data analysis competences for the purpose of achievement of a specific business objective. In November 2021, we organised the first hackathon using real-world data and analytical environment. A total of 221 people from ten different functions participated. The participants worked in 46 teams for two weeks. Their task was to develop models and train them using machine learning in order to increase sales of services via the My Orange app. Models for potential business use were delivered by 27 teams.

Annual Report 2021

Social dialogue

Economic impact

Engagement

Corporate volunteering

Employee innovations

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