Three Ideas for Building a Culture of Corporate Responsibility

At Outerwall, we strive for a culture where employees can bring their whole selves to work, which we know enriches our business.

Our corporate responsibility (CR) efforts comprise a major part of our culture. They highlight the values of Outerwall, and are designed to attract employees who have a desire to not only work for a successful, growing company, but one that provides a work experience with meaning and purpose. We also understand our actions impact others, and we’re dedicated to keeping that impact positive.

Corporate responsibility results

Since 2010, our programs have come a long way:

• Volunteer participation grew from 3 percent to 28 percent
• Our giving program sprouted from sporadic donations to a commitment of donating 1 percent of our company profits to the communities where we live and work
• We established five Business Resource Groups to celebrate employee diversity and drive inclusion
• We reduced our greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 22 percent

We recently held a service project with Feeding America at a senior leadership meeting that included executives working alongside employees from ecoATM. It was a great experience because we immediately saw the impact of our hard work, learned about operations and distribution at a non-profit and got to know each other better in a different setting.

“The most meaningful part of the event took place during the reflection, when an employee shared his story of growing up hungry. Volunteer service fosters openness, so people can bring their whole selves to work, including their histories.”
Nicole Trimble, senior director of corporate responsibility at Outerwall

Tips for integrating corporate responsibility into culture

If you’re looking to enhance CR efforts to improve your company’s culture, we’ve learned a few things along the way.

1. Incorporate: It’s important to tie business goals to CR efforts and gain the support of executives at the company. Outerwall provides employees with 8 hours of annual paid time off for volunteering, offers a “Dollars for Dollars” and “Dollars for Doers” matched giving program, and builds community involvement into team commitments.

   Our executives don’t just talk about our company values; they live them every day. The energy used by our kiosks remains the company’s largest environmental impact, and we have a goal to reduce their energy use. Our Coinstar team integrated this goal into their business goals, and worked to implement design changes in 2013 that eliminated the need for lighting on the lower part of the kiosk, resulting in a 29 percent decrease of average energy use.

    

2. Collaborate: Our CR team regularly partners with many groups across our organization – human resources, benefits, diversity & inclusion, field operations, engineering and supply chain – to implement and promote programs.

   A partnership between CR and our benefits team most recently resulted in a holiday opportunity to combine a wellness, volunteer and giving challenge for greater impact. Employees who completed a walking challenge during the holidays, in addition to volunteering, were given funds to make a charitable donation to the organization of their choice.  

    

3. Instigate: We believe that by involving our employees in the selection of our community partners, they are more likely to participate. Our CR team regularly works with our field employees – a geographically diverse group across the country – along with employees at our Seattle, Chicago and San Diego offices to identify volunteer and giving opportunities.

   Working with our BRGs, we made Better Everyday and Community Connection grants to organizations serving their constituencies. The grant review process was designed to be an opportunity for our employees to learn more about our company, the non-profit sector and our community partners.

For more information on our CR efforts, programs and results, download our 2013 Corporate Social Responsibility Report today!