Corporate responsibility is about more, not less: more value creation, more collaboration, more diversity and more passion. This belief in continuous growth and improvement is central to our approach to corporate responsibility here at Symantec.
It’s been a busy year for us with dozens of new product releases, global expansion of our services and a historic decision to split the company into two stand-alone entities – one focused on security and the other on information management. Amidst all the activity and progress, we remain laser-focused on our commitment to corporate responsibility, because we’ve seen time and time again that it provides clear value to our employees and our business, the environment and society.
I’m pleased to share that we just released our FY15 Corporate Responsibility Report. Because your feedback is important to us, and helps us keep growing, we invite you to take our stakeholder feedback survey and vote on how we should direct a $10,000 grant toward one of the causes we care about.
This year’s Corporate Responsibility Report showcases our continued commitment to positive growth, whether that’s through our efforts to build a more diverse and inclusive workplace, the expansion of our signature Symantec Cyber Career Connection (SC3) program, or our commitments to volunteerism and the environment. Below, we highlight a few of these goals and achievements:
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Growing our diverse workforce: Our goal is to increase the diversity of our workforce at all levels by 15 percent by 2020 (with FY14 as our baseline). Our partnerships are our greatest asset here – Net Impact, Anita Borg Institute and others enable us to build a pipeline of diverse employees and target inequity where it matters most: cultural norms.
For example, our partnership with Net Impact has helped the organization build student chapters at 20 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Women’s Colleges across the country – filling the pipeline of diverse students in positions of social impact.
We also expanded our Diversity and Inclusion team this year and invested significantly more resources in programs related to LGBT, veterans, professionals of color and people with disabilities. We’re confident that these investments of time, energy and money will pay off across our company and ultimately, society.
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Growing STEM and cyber professionals: Our goal is to excite, engage and educate 1 million students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education by 2020. We have invested nearly $3.2 million dollars in this cause and engaged 272,299 students globally through our non-profit partnerships such as Science Buddies, Boys & Girls Clubs of America and AAUW Tech Trek this fiscal year.
Our signature CR program, the Symantec Cyber Career Connection (SC3) in partnership with NPower and Year Up, successfully launched two pilot programs in three cities and we saw the first cohort of graduates this summer receive internships and full time jobs. This program is helping move the needle on key industry issues (lack of diversity and gap in jobs) by bringing a diverse population of workers to fill much-needed cybersecurity careers.
One hundred percent of the first class of SC3 graduates secured and completed internships, 72 percent received internship extensions or full-time job offers and 100 percent of these students are people of color (Black and Hispanic). We also announced the expansion of the SC3 program to Texas and India and are broadening the diversity of the participants to include veterans. We couldn’t be more excited to further scale this program in the coming years.
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Growing employees’ passion and commitment to society and the environment: We recognize the value of giving back with both time and money, as well as the importance of setting ambitious goals when it comes to the environment.
This year, we continued to expand our philanthropic partnerships, as well as the opportunities our employees have to apply their skills to societal problems. We aim to complete 84,000 employee volunteer hours by 2020, and in FY15 offered a variety of programs to make giving back easier for employees. For instance, the Symantec Service Corps, a team of high-performing, high-potential employees, spent a month providing pro bono expertise to three nonprofits in Ankara, Turkey this year. We also launched virtual volunteering across the company to enable employees to volunteer from their desks, homes or wherever they have an Internet connection. Our philanthropic giving in FY15 totaled $5.29 million, with an additional $25 million in software donated to organizations in 38 countries.
We’re also setting firm environmental and human rights goals. By the end of 2015, we aim to certify all our products as 100 percent Energy Star, and by the end of 2017 validate our products as conflict-free across all minerals. Furthermore, we aim to set a greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal after legal separation of the company is complete; in the meantime, we have enacted commitments around our supply chain and water use. As a member of Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), we have adopted a code of conduct that will apply to all suppliers by the end of 2016.
We invite you to read more about our efforts this past year by viewing the full Corporate Responsibility Report. By providing your valuable feedback via this survey, you’ll be able to vote on which of these three nonprofits receives a $10K grant to honor the work they do, which is closely tied to our own goals for corporate responsibility: Code.org, Anita Borg Institute and the Family Online Safety Institute.
We look forward to exciting times ahead, with an opportunity to continue to set and meet ambitious goals and celebrate change and positive growth across our company.
Cecily Joseph is Symantec's VP, Corporate Responsibility and Chief Diversity Officer
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Published Aug 28, 2015 5pm EDT / 2pm PDT / 10pm BST / 11pm CEST