Is it really October? 2021 flew by almost as quickly as 2020. But as they say, time flies when you’re doing fun and meaningful work. As we enter the final stretch of the year, let’s explore the CSR initiatives that have taken center stage these last six months.
April 2021: Autism Awareness and Sustainability Policy
We commemorated World Autism Day on April 2 with a series of activities designed to drive awareness about neurodiversity. At Visma Connect, we have an autism ambassador who raises awareness about this topic and helps employees struggling with autism spectrum disorder. We also made the language in our job openings more inclusive for gender- and neurodiverse people. Browse open vacancies and apply to join our team! Our mother company, Visma Group, published its sustainability policy in April. This was an important confirmation that a focus on sustainability is shaping our organisation for the future. It also gives us more leverage to pursue related projects.
May 2021: Re-use and revitalise
Part of having a formal commitment to sustainability means buying only what we really need. But as any company knows, sometimes things need to be replaced. To mitigate the environmental impact of our purchasing activities, we use second-hand furniture. So, in May, we outfitted our new meeting room
with pre-owned equipment - and it looks good too! May was also dedicated to mental health and wellbeing. We held a wellbeing program to improve our employees’ mental and general health. The program offered several e-learning sessions with tips to optimize our home office and organise our days. We also aired a podcast which promoted spending time outdoors. We offered stretching and work out sessions, and shared information about mental health to drive awareness.
June 2021: World Environment Day and Group values
June 5 was World Environment Day. We marked the occasion by announcing that we want to help other organisations with sustainability reporting. We also started reporting on our own carbon emissions to better understand how we can reduce our environmental impact. Visma Group announced our new company values in June. They align very well with Visma Connect’s goals in the areas of sustainability, diversity and inclusion. They also included “Responsible,” which confirms our commitment to have a positive impact and have accountability.
July and August 2021: Value sessions with employees
With the new values announced in June, we held sessions with employees in July and August to internalise them and really consider what they mean to us. These sessions helped us identify how we want to embody these values in our culture and way of working.
September 2021: New objectives
Visma Group announced new company-wide objectives internally in September. For us, they will drive an increased focus on sustainability, not only on the product front but also in our overall goals. This generated a lot of energy to implement ambitious projects that live up to this new focus in our organisation.