Corporate Citizenship
We invest in our local communities* through offering employment and training and through local purchasing. From a broader citizenship perspective, the Corporate Responsibility (CR) team has developed a range of charitable giving and staff volunteering programmes which can have a significant positive community impact and can also assist in the personal and professional development of our employees.
* Société Générale’s UK headquarters at Tower Hill is situated on the border of Tower Hamlets, which has one of the highest levels of deprivation in the UK, and hence a sizeable proportion of our community investment is directed towards this borough’s charitable organisations and schools.
Charitable giving
The main focus of the UK charitable giving programme is to generate funds for our Charity of the Year, which is chosen via an all-staff vote and to which donations over 12 months typically total well in excess of £100,000.
Support is given to other charities and charitable causes, principally those with which the Bank has a long term relationship such as Downside Fisher Youth Club in Southwark, which fights social exclusion, but also to those charities supported by staff through their personal fundraising or volunteering outside of the Bank’s CR initiative.Charitable giving takes the following forms:
Cash donations:
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By the Charitable Trust: (i) Matching of staff fundraising organised by individuals or by CR or other teams within Société Générale. (ii) Direct donations, mainly to social enterprises in Tower Hamlets but also to support disability sport and promising young athletes in East London. |
(i) Fundraising via events organised by staff themselves or by CR or other teams within Société Générale.
(ii) Payroll giving: 100% matched by the Bank if for the Company’s Charity of the Year.
By Société Générale teams:
- an example would be a donation made at the request of a client.
Donations in-kind:
By Société Générale teams and by staff of unwanted equipment.
- if the equipment’s residual value is realized and donated in cash, the Charitable Trust makes a matching donation to the Charity of the Year
Staff volunteering programmes
We have well established staff volunteering programmes in place, some of which take place in the lunch hour and some during working time. For the latter, staff are entitled to use up to 2 days per person per year.
The volunteering activities are organised to cover a range of time commitment, personal interest and professional skills, and for which training can be arranged if needed.
Some examples:
- Assistance on basic skills: Weekly sessions in primary schools to help pupils on languages, reading, numbers, computers, music, chess and netball.
- Mentoring / advisory: Monthly guidance to officials of charities and local boroughs and to secondary school students and youth clubs. Topics range from business planning and change management, through to presentation and interviewing skills.
- Team building: Team challenges tailored to suit the areas of interest and time availability of individual Société Générale teams, and which at the same time help the local community or the environment.
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Work experience scheme
The Human Resources team working with the City of London manages a work experience scheme whereby 16/18 year old students from local schools are given 6 to 10 weeks work experience in various Société Générale teams as preparation for decision-making later in life. We also participate in a similar scheme run by one of our suppliers which provides work experience to unemployed young adults with limited or no academic qualifications.
