Almost 150 years ago, Samuel Morse (yes, the inventor of Morse code), fired off the very first telegraph message between Washington and Baltimore, making him the first to ever achieve instantaneous, long-distance communication. Morse ushered in the era of communication technology that would allow for immediate access to information, better education, and broadened opportunities for populations across the world. After Morse’s invention went global, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)  was formed in 1865. The ITU (which is still going strong today) marked May 17 as World Telecommunication and Information Society Day. The goal? Raise awareness of the many opportunities that technology can bring to communities around the world.

Softchoice Cares also sees the many opportunities technology can bring to our society. Over the past few years, Softchoice Cares has worked hard to help bridge the ‘digital divide’ and provide communities all over the world with access to technology. But we haven’t always been focused on technology-related philanthropy. In fact, we started out supporting a variety of causes, including building houses with Habitat for Humanity. It was only after we discovered Peggie Pelosi’s book Corporate Karma that we realized we were uniquely positioned to improve the lives of people by connecting them to what we know best – technology!

Softchoice Cares In Action

I spoke with current Softchoice Cares Chairperson, Heather Brown (Outside Sales Representative), and Vice Chair, Craig Bator (Marketing Project Manager), to gain insight into whether Softchoice Cares’ more focused approach has made a bigger impact.

NB: Craig, Heather, can you tell us why Softchoice Cares decided to focus its efforts on “bridging the digital divide”?

Craig: Everything in our world today ties back to technology. If you don’t have access to it, you’re automatically going to be at a disadvantage. Technology generates significant opportunities, and Softchoice Cares wants to provide people with access to technology so they have a chance to achieve their full potential.

Heather: Softchoice Cares recognizes the way to empower people is to give them access to technology because it’s one of the best tools you can use for education. Personally, I think that the connection aspect of technology is one of the strongest parts of what bridges a digital divide. As an example, it allows an individual in Kenya to tell their story to someone across the world.

NB: Can you share some examples of where we’ve made an impact through technology?

Heather: A great example of our strategy in action was one of our overseas missions to a Ugandan community to build a computer lab. I had the chance to go back last year and see first-hand the benefits that this lab brought to the community; they were using it as a “vo-tech” for people to receive computer training. It’s important to note that the people using the computers are kids who would’ve had to leave high school to financially support their families. However, this program allowed them to make the switch from backbreaking manual labor to administrative or technology-related jobs, helping improve their standard of living and providing opportunities that they may never have had.

Craig: That’s a great example of our overseas missions, but it’s also important to note that a large part of our goal is to also make a difference in our local Softchoice communities across North America. A recent example was with Sky’s The Limit. We provided 111 laptops to high-school students in one of Canada’s most economically-disadvantaged regions. These were kids who would stay late at school to finish their work because they didn’t have computers at home. Many students actually came up to us during the event and told us these computers were going to open up so many doors for them once they graduated because it gave them more opportunity to better educate themselves outside of school.

NB: Do you have any advice for organizations that may be looking to develop a philanthropic strategy?

Heather: I believe a great strategy is based around the skillsets you’re able to share with people. When Softchoice Cares first got started we were looking at Habitat for Humanity – we figured it would be great to go build a house! But at the end of the day, we don’t know how to build homes – we know how to build technology solutions. I think organizations that have special skillsets that others can really benefit from should use those to make the greatest impact.

Craig: I agree. I also think our Softchoice differentiator is our people – these are the passionate people we bring through the door to help support our initiatives. So you also need to understand what your employees are passionate about and build your philanthropic strategy from there. That’s how Softchoice Cares started in the first place. It was from people who really wanted to contribute to relief efforts for the 2004 tsunami in South East Asia. Overall, when you align your goals and skillset with your giving initiatives, you’re going to make a much bigger impact on the communities you’re helping.

Making Your Own Impact

Leveraging your strengths for philanthropic initiatives isn’t just reserved for corporations; you as an individual can also do the same! Why not take that love of knitting and make clothing for the homeless? Or use your passion for literature (and possibly overabundance of books) to read to children who don’t have access to libraries? There’s plenty of charitable causes out there, and plenty of opportunities to use strengths and passions to help with an initiative you feel strongly about!

Joseph Byer leading the pack to celebrate Softchoice’s 2012 listing as one of Canada’s Greenest Workplaces by Maclean’s magazine!

It’s no secret that in North America, more and more commuters are choosing two wheels instead of four, or giving up their transit pass to avoid the crowded subways and busses. There are many more reasons than just traffic frustration as well including health benefits both physical and mental.

Aside from the reasons on the personal level, there’s no shortage of reasons for companies to promote the use of the bicycle as an efficient means to get to work every day.  For that to work, there are some things to consider that will encourage those would-be cyclists to drop the excuses and start pedalling!

As a year-round bike commuter, I’m lucky to to work for a company that not only provides shower facilities but also has a very casual dress code for regular in-office work days. Occasionally I may have to “suit up” to meet clients, but for the most part jeans and a T-shirt are perfectly acceptable.

So what can other business do to make it easier for employees to choose the cycling option?

1. Showers are a great idea, but may not even be necessary. Speaking to my own experience, I do like to hammer it at a cruising speed of 30km/h as I treat my 30+ min ride each way as my daily exercise. Thus I’ll often don the “spandex warrior” look and bring a change of clothes, knowing I’ll get a rinse off when I arrive. But on more than one occasion, I’ve had to roll right into my desk to take care of urgent matters. I find that after some of the less vigorous rides, cooling down in my bike-wear for about an hour then changing into work clothes is doable without a shower. Just a layer of deodorant can do the trick. Depending on the intensity of the ride and level of fitness your mileage may vary with this tactic.

With this in mind, even one or two shower stalls may do the trick. At Softchoice, 3 showers in each men’s and women’s change rooms are adequate and this is for 500+ employees at our Toronto HQ. Your company would need to take location into consideration, whether it’s the average temperature in your neck of the woods or whether the office itself is uphill or downhill. Trust me, this can make the difference between a nicely refreshed rider and one whose heart rate has topped out!

2. Have a place for cyclists to store their cycling clothes at the office; somewhere they can hang dry that won’t be in anyone’s way or pose an unhygienic hazard. Our office has many closets for coats, but also some clothes racks stashed in out-of-the-way places that are perfect for me to hang my base layers. This is especially important for those wet or snowy days so there are less deterrents to cycling when the weather isn’t perfect.

3. Offer a business or basic causal dress code. It would help many more employees arriving on two wheels if they could dress in business casual or ideally, basic casual. I’ve overheard conversations about “I would’ve biked to work today, but I had to wear a suit.” The prospect of wadding up a dress shirt, pressed slacks and a jacket into a back pack is enough to make the most seasoned cyclist say “Nuts to this, I’ll just drive…” Although some people really can pull off the uber-dapper look while cycling, it just doesn’t work for most. And for those that don’t necessarily need a change of clothes, it would be much easier to ride to work in Jeans and T-shirt, if the office allowed it.

4. Above all, offer a safe, accessible and secure place for employees to stash their bikes. That might mean a secure or highly-visible and patrolled area outside, possibly a locked cage, or a place indoors/inside the office. Bike theft is particularly rampant in cities like Toronto, but not just the bikes that are targets; “harvesters” are constantly grabbing pretty much any useful component that isn’t welded to the frame. This includes wheels, bells, lights, handlebars, brakes and brake levers, seats – and even in once case, when I left it unattended, thieves made off with the quick-release clamp. So a standard parking lot with a bike rack is not sufficient as bikes and their parts are more susceptible to theft. How often have you left your car unattended to find someone made off with just the transmission or the horn?

So there are four healthy actions a business can take to ensure healthy, happy employees. Some require more drastic changes than others, but ultimately, taking any one of these individual steps will send you on a path towards promoting a brighter future for your employees and the planet.

This post originally appeared in Joseph Byer’s own blog Joepocalypse.

To help reduce their carbon footprint, search-engine giant Google decided to scrap their lawn mowers and rent goats to munch on their lawns instead. Not only are these goats much more environmentally-friendly than lawn mowers, but as Google puts it, “goats are a lot cuter to watch!”

Softchoice hasn’t yet progressed to renting goats to do our landscaping, but we’re doing our part to take care of the environment with some other green initiatives. Being a technology provider, we know it’s important to look at how we can become more conscious of implementing more environmentally-aware practices when it comes to technology – after all, the IT industry produces the same carbon emissions as the airline industry, approximately 1 billion tonnes of Carbon Dioxide per year. While we may be excited about the technology advances we’ve seen recently (i.e. iPads, Google Maps, social media outlets), we have to be conscious of the amount of energy it takes to run the servers and infrastructure that support these tools.

Of course, while data centers can be obvious energy gorgers, there are ways that IT companies can run their centers to help reduce their carbon footprint. To find out how Softchoice is making our data center greener, I sat down with Softchoice IT Infrastructure Manager Lester Moniz. Lester explained the top 3 green IT initiatives that Softchoice has been focusing on recently:

1. Consolidating Data Centers. Computing devices generate a lot of heat, and can overheat easily (think of the last time you talked on your cell-phone for twenty minutes; I bet it was hot against your ear by the end of the conversation!) The infrastructure within our data centers is no different; servers need to stay cool to run effectively, which means air conditioning requirements can quickly escalate (in fact, it’s one of the biggest power vacuums in the data center!) To help reduce the amount of power we use to run our air conditioners, Softchoice is consolidating data centers. For example, after our merger with Unis Lumin in 2011, Softchoice started migrating the apps running on Unis Lumin equipment to our core data center. Once the conversion is complete, we’ll be using considerably less air conditioning to cool one data center instead of multiple.
2. Virtualization. Softchoice is proud to say that we’re currently 95% virtualized, and we’re striving to become 100% as soon as possible! This means we’re combining our physical servers in our data center, allowing for the support of multiple applications on a single machine. This reduces the amount of power we use (less servers = less power!) Not to mention, by virtualizing our applications, we’re reducing our power consumption for client devices (laptops, cell-phones and tablets), as there’s no need for each device to use more power to run applications locally.
3. Reducing Power Requirements in our Data Center. Over the past year we’ve managed to reduce the power requirements in our data center by improving our virtual platform. As mentioned above, server virtualizing means we have fewer servers to power…and keep cool. Ultimately, this decreases the demand on our air conditioning, effectively reducing our carbon emissions!

If your company is looking for ways to reduce your carbon footprint, it may be worthwhile for you to take a look at virtualizing your servers (if you haven’t already!) Talk to one of our Softchoice advisors or complete our Virtualization Assessment to see if it’s a logical step for your business!

If virtualization isn’t practical for your company, there are still simple things you can do around the office to practice green computing, such as:

1. Powering off your computer at the end of the workday or when you won’t be using your computer for several hours.
2. Changing your computer’s power management mode to automatically enter sleep mode rather than idle after a period of inactivity.
3. Avoid using phantom power by unplugging your computer, cell-phone, and other devices when not in use. Even though a device is powered off, it will still be sucking energy if it’s plugged into an outlet.

These suggestions may seem small, but every little bit counts! This could be a great stepping stone in developing your own unique green initiative such as Google’s goat renting, allowing you to simultaneously help the environment and give your office a cool and unique image that could boost your workplace culture!

1. Our deep appreciation for dogs has been around since Softchoice first began in 1989. Need a stress reliever? Try taking a break by petting one of the many office dogs that have become important members of the organization.

Toronto office dogs getting ready to pose for a doggy photo shoot.

2. Giving back to the community has been a core part of our culture. But in December of 2004, a devastating tsunami struck South East Asia. Following the catastrophe a few employees decided to raise money to support the massive relief effort which has now turned into our employee-led philanthropic program Softchoice Cares.  This program’s core purpose is to help bridge the digital divide and help support employee-led  volunteer initiative that our employees feel strongly about.  We also give employees two paid volunteer days per year to volunteer for a charity of their choice, providing many ways for them to get involved and give back over the years!

Here’s a video documentary of our 2012 mission to Bali, where we learned there’s a big difference between “aid” and “development”!

3. Every year, Softchoice recognizes our top performers (President’s Club award winners) by sending them to an outstanding vacation destination. And in 2011, our people took it one step further to give back to our host country that so graciously welcomed our people. These have definitely generated some memorable moments over the years!

Recent President’s Club destinations: Rome 2012; Costa Rica 2011; Grand Cayman 2010; Barcelona 2009

4. Our monthly corporate-wide Friday Beer Carts are a great way to get everyone in the company together to network and kick-start the month ahead! After kicking back with a cold brew the first Friday of every month, our employees can take the end of the day to mingle, chat and enjoy down time with their coworkers!

Caronas all around during our summer 2011 “Wildly Green” themed beer cart!

5. We have an annual corporate kick-off every year called Launch. Not only is it a chance to celebrate successes from the past year, but even more importantly, get everyone aligned on the goals for the year ahead.  It’s also an opportunity for training and networking with our coworkers from across North America!

Our hockey-themed Launch in 2006!

6. Our executives believe that exercise and having fun is the key to innovation, and they remind us of this by remaining active themselves. It also helps that we have an in-house fully-equipped gym in our Toronto office!

Our CEO David MacDonald runs on the treadmill in the Toronto office gym.

7. Years ago, we reallized what it meant to find unique and inspiring ways of recognizing employees when we first awarded the coveted Tie-Jacket award.  This is now just one of the few different awards we hand out to recognize those employees who go above and beyond to demonstrate our core values as an organization. This belief has led to coveted awards that are all about tradition, pride and recognition by peers – including the ‘technicolour dreamcoat’ and other awards like it that are passed on every year to the best of the best in our company!

Our Tie-Jacket in all its glory!

8. We have multiple opportunities to perfect both acting and Lip-Synching skills. We constantly showcase our talent with lip-dub videos, technology guides, explanations of our offerings, and more! Our US West Region team helped with recruiting efforts by explaining what throwing bees and a sales career at Softchoice has in common. Watch the video below!

Thanks to our employees, we’ve truly had a great past eight years; and we’re looking forward to having many more to come!

We want to know – what do you think makes a great workplace?

How do you get employees to come out and support a local charitable initiative on Toronto’s snowiest day in two years?  Have them take the lead on the cause!  According to the 2011 Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT survey, employee-led volunteer initiatives can significantly improve employee engagement, and subsequently improve productivity.  The activities can create a positive work culture and brand by uniting employees across departments behind a common cause and help improve morale and establish friendly relations.

As a new intern at Softchoice, I learned this first-hand when I volunteered at a fundraising event called Tokens 4 Change. The event is held every February to raise money for Youth Without Shelter; a Toronto-based, emergency youth residence and referral agency focused on removing barriers that prevent our homeless youth from becoming independent.

Even on a crippling wintery day, our team of Softchoice employees joined the ranks of more than 400 volunteers who braved the snow and canvassed for donations along the participating TTC subway stations! Despite the freezing bursts of wind blowing through the station doors, all of the volunteers had smiles on their faces. Their perseverance paid off – the event raised almost $90,000 in cash donations, and $250,000 in awareness advertising and in-kind donations!

Softchoice first became involved in this event after the company launched its Power 2 the People campaign in 2011.  The campaign was started by Softchoice Cares, the company’s employee-led philanthropic program, which allows employees to nominate local not-for-profit organizations. Human Resources  Analyst and Softchoice Cares Board Member, Jen Wood, nominated Youth Without Shelter in 2012 and has since coordinated volunteer efforts across the Toronto office to support the cause.

By seeing the amount of enthusiasm my fellow coworkers had for the event, I began to understand why volunteering has become such a strong component of the Softchoice culture. Giving employees the freedom to be the driving force behind fundraising activities, Softchoice is aligning our values across the entire organization – ultimately fostering a sense of community amongst our teams, partners, and customers. So why not let your employees take the reins. Not only will you be helping the communities around you but also boosting employee engagement and camaraderie in the process – a win-win for everyone!

Does your organization support employee-led philanthropic initiatives? Share some of your employee-led success stories here!