When your Ottawa office includes more than 2,300 employees, you can bet the term ‘community’ becomes a key word in your corporate repertoire.
For Nokia and its employees, community can mean many different things. It could mean the familiar faces you see walking down to the cafeteria, or it could be the TGI Friday events that gets you away from your desk and face-to-face with colleagues from other departments. During the month of October, ‘community’ often means Nokia’s United Way Campaign.
Clarissie Stamper, Nokia’s United Way Ottawa lead and Andy Thompson, VP of Procurement and Optical Networks at Nokia.
The telecommunications company operates in a highly competitive market for talent, and knows that attracting and retaining these employees requires that they build a positive social culture within the walls of their Kanata office. But this is only part of the equation. For Nokia and its employees, a clear priority is in making their community a better place. A cornerstone of this effort and a significant driver of engaging their employees, is Nokia’s effort to giving back where they live.
“Giving back to the community where we live and where our kids grow up is important to us,” says Andy Thompson, VP of Procurement and Optical Networks.
As a United Way Ottawa partner, Nokia’s support stays 100% Local and is put to work in the neighbourhoods where their employees live and work.
Adapting to shifting trends in giving
Over the 25 years that Nokia and United Way have partnered, the relationship has changed to suit shifting trends in giving and philanthropy. In 2017, Nokia chose to enhance their campaign with a deeper focus on a few key areas of impact.
After surveying employees on their interests and values with the help of their United Way Account Manager, Brittany Matthews, Nokia focused their campaign on support for vulnerable people, specifically providing help to move people out of poverty and support those with mental health challenges.
“The benefit of United Way is its relevance,” says Andy, “As our community changes and as the interests of our employees evolve, we’re able to adjust the focus of our workplace campaign to ensure that it is something our employees can connect with and know they can have an impact.”
To Nokia and its employees, giving back is uniquely human.
In quoting a recent blog post by Nokia CEO, Rajeev Suri, their United Way lead, Clarissie Stamper, says “[we] believe technology serves us best when it gives us more time to do things that are uniquely human. Our business is technology, and connecting people.”
Nokia does this in many ways through their United Way workplace campaign. With strong internal campaign leadership and a clear understanding of the issues important to their employees, the company is translating their global outreach into a local impact, and providing employees with an opportunity to have a tangible impact in Ottawa.
