The Love On Platform was launched in August 2021 worldwide, with the intention of creating an employee experience for employee volunteering. Through this platform, employees not only can register for volunteering, but also may track their hours in lieu with the volunteering policy and donate their rewards to charity. As part of the Love On Purpose Program, for every hour that employees volunteer, they receive $5 USD as Volunteer Rewards to donate to a charity of choice.
Since the launch of the program in August 2021, the Program has hosted over 5700+ active users, with 2000+ employees opting to donate time and resources with a global matching of US$254,609 from Lenovo Foundation.
Today we spoke to two Lenovo employees based in Asia Pacific on their experiences using the Love On Platform and their motivation to support causes close to them.
We met with D. L. Sujai Kumar, AP Head of Services, who was one of the first to log into the Love On Platform. Sujai has worked with Lenovo for the last 13 years. He began as part of India Service Operations before moving on to an AP Service Operations role with nine members in KL, Dalian, Tokyo and India. For the past three to four years, he has set time aside to volunteer regularly at activities such as the tree plantation activity and the road safety exercise. Both outings were held as part of Lenovo’s 35th birthday celebrations, immediately before all activities went virtual.
Sujai’s motivation for volunteering was always to give back to the community, but he also found it beneficial to his mental wellbeing. He says, “We are so busy five days a week, 20 days a month. There is nothing to divert our attention. When we do such external activities – see new things – it gives us a good feeling of having contributed something to the community.” He recollects one activity where they were providing coaching to students during the COVID-19 second wave. The session enabled him to do something for someone else, even during those difficult times.
Sujai admits he was one of the first employees to access the Love On Platform when it was launched in August this year. He loved signing up for volunteering activities but found he had to look out for the mailers that announced the volunteering opportunities, register them separately on one platform and track the volunteering hours on a different platform. At times due to business pressures, he missed tracking his volunteering hours. Further, while he encouraged his teammates to participate in volunteering, he was not sure if they had volunteered as they were spread out in different countries and locations.
The Love On Platform smoothed over those issues for Sujai. For him it was a “one-stop shop” –he could see all the volunteering activities line up not only in India but also in other countries. From the dashboard, he could see the number of hours he contributed to volunteering. The incentivizing of the volunteer hours was the cherry on top – an added push to do more. This was the kind of innovation he was looking forward to from Lenovo Foundation for an employee volunteering experience.
Sujai has over the last 3 months tracked 12.5 volunteering hours, against which he raised several volunteering rewards. Using the Love On Platform, he identified an organization that supported children and had a pan-India presence. He chose to donate to ISKON, in addition to donating his own funds to two additional charities.
When he realized he could nominate charities for the Love On Platform that would receive funding and matching from Lenovo Foundation, he suggested additional charities for the list. He is proud that Lenovo also supports matching donations of employees for charities doing great social service. Now that he is comfortable with the Love On Platform, he says he will explore the option of recurring donations as soon as the charities he nominated are onboarded. He is also considering donating to the Lenovo Meghshala Teacher Enablement Program or the Lenovo Agastya STEM Education Program. He plans on holding volunteering opportunities for the AP Services Operations Team in the next fiscal year. For Giving Tuesday, he aims to log on to the Love On Platform and try his luck to see if he can get an extra dollar to donate to charity.