Innovation

Raising awareness regarding minorities, equality, and the environment is crucial to understanding sustainable development goals and plays an integral role in kickstarting action.

As part of its sustainable development and corporate culture, Business Solutions and Technologies has implemented Impact Week. It is an annual initiative in which the company employees share their professional experience with representatives of NPOs and businesses, learn about the activities of various charitable foundations and engage in intellectual and traditional volunteering.

Impact week is split into two blocks, with three days each. The first block seeks to cultivate an understanding among the company's employees of inclusivity, the challenges minorities face, and environmental concerns. This year the staff assisted homeless people together with an NPO Nochlezhka, learned about separate waste collection, and attended a lecture organized by WWF. The second block of the initiative comprises a series of seminars carried out by employees. These panels pertain to relevant issues selected from the results of the survey conducted among NPOs and businesses. Hence, it could be asserted that Impact Week corresponds to the following UN SDGs: 4. quality education and 17. partnerships for goals.

Inspiration

Inspiring others is referred to as one of the essential characteristics and this is particularly accurate in a progressively convoluted industry, where growth is underpinned by concurrent projects concerning competition and suppliers. Meanwhile, the competent leader of the future ought to incorporate strategic and functional abilities and be capable of shifting priority swiftly between them. Instilling these qualities and competencies in people requires expertise and experience that BST’s employees have and are willing to share. The initiative was introduced as part of Deloitte's corporate social responsibility program in 2017 and was initially named Impact Day. Originally, in the context of the initiative, various social events were held over one workday. However, as Deloitte ceased operations in Russia, the concept of the program changed, and Impact Day transformed into Impact Week and began to include educational events for other businesses and NPOs.

Overall impact

Impact week has a consequential impact on the Russian business sector. BST is inclined to allow as many entrepreneurs, employees, volunteers, or representatives of NPOs as possible to have the opportunity to participate in the webinars. Inciting curiosity in people spurs them to dig deeper and, eventually, take feasible steps towards building a responsible society.

Objective 4: Quality Education:

As BST wants to enlighten individuals on societal concerns, it ensures that anybody can partake in this educational project free of charge.

Objective 13: Climate actions

The climate agenda is an integral part of the company's activities. Increasing climate awareness among employees of the parent company and partner companies positively affects the detrimental human impact on pollution levels.

Objective 17: Partnerships for the goals

Communication is the only proper way to the fruitful development of humankind. Through the exchange of experience between colleagues and charitable organizations, the company takes a step toward new trends in the industry.

Business benefit

First of all, Impact Week has an advantageous outcome for the company's employees and their morale, as it helps further enhance the perception of SDGs among them since the best way to comprehend a matter is by endeavouring to explain it to others.

As the BST spokesperson said, “It is a useful practice for the team in terms of developing a syllabus and coaching. All charitable or social events improve the employees cross-functional communication and allows them to get acquainted with representatives of various NPOs.”

Additionally, this program favourably impacts BST’s reputation and allows the company to show its expertise, which draws in new clients and business connections.

Social and environmental benefit

By virtue of Impact Week, comprehension of societal and ecological problems is enhanced. As other businesses' knowledge improves in sectors connected to sustainable development, the degree of accountability rises. It allows society to move forward.

In 2022, Impact Week's second block encompassed six topics: "How to speak to be heard", "Employee Experience", "Delegation of tasks", "Internal and external communications in the field of personnel management", "Introduction to risk management", "Stress management and burnout prevention".

The first panel discussed eight critical steps to take when preparing for a presentation. The instructor spoke about the concept of meta-messages and the consequences of discrepancies between meta-messages and verbal messages. The participants conversed regarding ways of mitigating anxiety and overcoming the fear of public speaking. Together they contemplated the methods of answering puzzling or challenging questions from the audience. The second seminar touched upon the notion of "employee experience". The company compared employee experience management and customer experience management. The third training discussed the nature of authority delegation, and which matters could be reassigned and which could not. The speakers shared their experience of motivating employees to do what they do not want to do. The fourth panel contained information on communication procedures, which are becoming a crucial tool for human resources management. The webinar examined the central principles of communication planning within the talent management cycle in organizations. The fifth discussion covered the basic concepts of risk management and methods of identifying, analyzing, and assessing risks. The final conference was aimed at developing stress management skills, learning how to effectively search for additional sources of energy and motivation, timely identification of emotional burnout, and its prevention.

Interview

Anton Zykov Aleksandrovich, Partner