It”™s not unusual for Dan Law to look out his window and see turkey buzzards in the trees. Or maybe watch an occasional bobcat stroll by.
Not unusual for someone who works on a designated wildlife habitat.
But this habitat is the 380-acre IBM headquarters in Armonk.
It”™s an undiscovered secret even to employees, says Law, IBM”™s director of human resources. It”™s “another example of the seriousness to which we take our corporate responsibility.”
The wooden furniture lining the headquarters was harvested from an African forest and “what IBM did was rather than just buying the timber from Africa, they actually went and bought the whole forest, harvested the timber and replanted the forest, so we could be environmentally conscious.”
The nearly 100-year-old technological icon and winner of The Business Council of Westchester”™s 2010 Corporate Citizenship Award for the 2010 Business Hall of Fame, was through history a pioneer in the ever-evolving area of social responsibility.
“IBM was a very progressive employer and was one of the first to introduce different types of benefits,” Law said. “We were the first company to put employees on salary. From a diversity standpoint, we hired our first disabled employee in 1914. We had our first woman vice president in 1943. We were the first company to support the United Negro College Fund in 1944. We issued our first EEO (equal employment opportunity) policy letter in 1953, 11 years before the Voting Rights Act.”
Law said the notion of corporate responsibility has more recently translated into initiatives like the On Demand Community Initiative, Corporate Service Corps and World Community Grid.
By the end of June, IBM will have enrolled some 750 participants in the Corporate Service Corps program, who laud the program “a life-changing experience,” according to Robin Willner, IBM vice president of global community initiatives.
“It really makes a considerable difference,” she said. “Whether it”™s an artisan”™s collaborative that just got a new website or a university that got a new student information system or a ministry of tourism that got a new strategic plan, these are benchmark projects. They really are making a difference.”
IBM identifies high-potential employees around the world, formulates teams and sends them to “work on a significant economic or societal issue,” Law said, within some 16 countries.
On-the-ground efforts and months of follow-up work really fosters “employee satisfaction because they”™re thankful for that experience.”
It has a dual benefit, as IBM “found that our retention of folks who participate in the Corporate Service Corps is tremendous.”
A more technologically centered initiative is the World Community Grid, which harnesses the power of idle computers to conduct computations for research ranging from cancer study to clean energy.
“In order to find a new drug treatment for say, HIV/AIDS, we have to find the chemicals that will do the best job of stopping the growth of the HIV virus and I”™m not a scientist, but if you want the virus to stop growing, you have to find out which chemical will block it from growing,”
Willner said. “You can do that in a laboratory and take a virus and a chemical and see if it grows ”¦ but basically you have to do it one-by-one. Or, we can do it mathematically.”
The process takes a supercomputer, Willner said, and the grid takes millions of computations and sends them over a network of linked-in laptop and desktop power, which is then utilized to find algorithms or other solutions.
Also utilizing IBM”™s array of technology is an online mentorship platform designed for 8,000 volunteers who mentor students from around the world.
The company has also launched “a whole set of hands-on, environmental experiments and videos you can show to kids,” Willner said, for National Lab Day in May, which encourages science professionals from throughout the country to help teachers more effectively teach science.
Willner said the company is urging employees to get involved and volunteer.
Specifically for Westchester County, IBM”™s giving in 2009 totaled more than $853,500.
Programs such as the IBMKidSmart Early Learning program, Women in Technology workshops and Girls Go TechKnow are some among many of the company”™s corporate responsibility initiatives.
“We do want to be a role model, but we also want companies to see that you can do good in your community, you can be a good corporate citizen and you can link that to your business strategy,” Law said. “There are a number of things that we do in terms of recruiting efforts, our diversity efforts and our efforts within the workplace to provide our employees with opportunity to achieve a better balance in work life or to better integrate their work in their lives.”
