When I was told Salesforce Australia had been recognised for the sixth year running as one of the Best Workplaces in Australia, in the large category by Great Place to Work, I was thrilled. Thrilled not only for what it means for the business, but also for what it means for our employees, customers, and the entire ecosystem that Salesforce is connected to.
As we celebrate, I want to take a moment to reflect on this past year of immense change, and share what makes Salesforce one of the best places to work in Australia.
Our culture is built on employee care
Supporting our employees is a core part of our culture. As we adapt to a new, work-from-anywhere world, we are empowering our employees to embrace flexible working as the traditional ‘9-to-5 workday’ is reimagined into a hybrid work style. This resulted in our development of Work.com to help our business and communities reopen safely, re-skill employees and respond efficiently on the heels of COVID-19.
We also remained committed to supporting our working parents by adding additional benefits to our parental leave program. Off the back of a turbulent year that saw many parents working from home, we reimbursed childcare payments through our Global Back Up Child Care program giving up to $100/day for up to 20 days of total care.
But our level of care we provide our employees goes beyond monetary benefits. Our Camp B-Well wellness portal continues to be our go-to-hub to help all employees live well every day, and contains resources like after-school programs for kids, and guided meditations for a mental wellness break.
Giving back gives employees purpose
Despite living through one of the greatest global challenges of our time, the passion of Salesforce and our employees to give back hasn’t faltered. In the past year we’ve been able to make a real difference for businesses and our communities. Here’s just a few examples:
- We announced our $1 million donation in grants to Schools Plus, an organisation which supports teachers to deliver programs that will help children facing disadvantaged success at school, and CareerTrackers, a national non-profit which creates pathways for Indigenous young adults to attend and graduate university and gain industry experience.
- We partnered with the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia to offer one-off $10,000 in grants to 72 small businesses who were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- We continued our focus on developing digital skills across Australia by partnering with the Australian technology sector to launch Skill Finder, a world-first, totally free micro-skills marketplace available to all Australians. As of October 2020, there have been 500,000 visits to skillfinder.com.au, with 150,000 of those visitors enrolling in a course.
At Salesforce we’re proud of our partnership with Raise Foundation, which has so far mentored over 6,000 young people and trained almost 5,000 mentors. Salesforce Sales Executive Charles Noovao summed up the value of that program neatly when he said, “Being able to make a direct impact on someone who needs a non-judgemental shoulder to lean on, and someone to talk to, is powerful and humbling at the same time.”
With Salesforce’s 1-1-1 philanthropy model, the global business has given more than $240 million in grants and provided over 3.5 million hours of community service. In Australia, our employees have volunteered more than 229,000 hours of their time (42,000 of those hours in 2020 alone!), donated over $4.1M USD in grants, and supported over 2,000 nonprofit organisations across Australia to make a real, measurable difference in their communities. We’re also proud to share that more than 1,400 companies in Australia have joined us to Pledge 1% of their product, time and resources to philanthropy.
We’re obsessed with customer success
And, while over the past year we’ve prioritised our employees and our community, we’ve also kept a laser-sharp focus on supporting our customers that have had to fundamentally rethink their operating models in response to COVID-19.
We were beyond proud to see our customers pivot and re-imagine their businesses to not only survive, but in many cases thrive throughout the pandemic. We supported customers like MECCA, Telstra, and ANZ Bank, who all digitally transformed the way they interact with their customers virtually. We also stepped in to support the Public Sector by providing the manual contract tracing technology to South Australian, West Australian, and Victorian governments to help keep their communities safe. By providing our customers with the digital transformation and support they needed to survive and thrive throughout the pandemic, they were able to continue their focus on their customers — and that’s a great feeling.
It’s clear from these incredible initiatives that our great company culture is much more than a statement in an employee handbook or the work of one leader or group. It’s born out of the passion of our employees, customers and wider community uniting to give back to society, to business and to themselves. Ultimately, it’s about succeeding together and it’s this approach that makes our culture so unique.
Despite another year of disruption, it’s been incredible to see how together we have continued to inspire each other to create a positive impact for our customers and in our communities. Our business, our success, and our culture wouldn’t exist without the unwavering commitment from our people — so thank you.
Interested in joining our team? Excellent, because we’re hiring.
