In 2019, Red Eléctrica Group employees devoted nearly 3000 hours to 67 corporate volunteering activities for environmental and social causes. This was the result of a new Corporate Volunteering Management Model that seeks to develop personal skills as well as creating value for the region. Would you like to know more about these actions?
Corporate volunteering is a resource that many companies in the country use to encourage their employees to engage in charity work, helping them to develop their personal skills while they also take part in work that has great value for their area in terms of the social and environmental development of society. During 2019, the Red Eléctrica Group took part in a total of 67 corporate volunteering activities, making a financial contribution to society of 117,000 euros according to the London Benchmarking Group (LBG) methodology.
A total of 560 Group employees devoted their time to these charitable initiatives, representing a participation of 33.6% of the total workforce, tripling the participation of the previous year. The dedication of Red Eléctrica employees is much higher than the average participation by Spanish companies, which was 8.3% in 2018, according to the VI Report on the social impact of companies published by the Fundación SERES in November 2019.
More than half of these interventions organised by the corporate volunteering group EnREDando in 2019 were social in nature, like Dedica un minuto al futuro (Devote one minute to the future), an action that took place in November in collaboration with the Spanish Red Cross in which employees made 500 solidarity kits of basic child hygiene products for vulnerable families.
Activities related with the social health initiatives amounted to 24% of the total. Héroes en casa (Heroes at home) was one of these, carried out with the support of the Asociación Freno al Ictus (Stop Strokes Association), for which company employees were trained beforehand about this condition and visited primary and secondary schools to spread information about it, explaining the importance of detecting the symptoms in an early stage.
Another important part of these activities, around 20%, were related with the environment, such as those dedicated to cleaning up the rubbish that people had left in wildlife areas. This was the case ofProyecto Libera (Libera Project) , carried out in collaboration with SEO/BirdLife and Ecoembes, which brought together over 100 employees and their families over different days to raise awareness and motivate them to clean up litter in Barcelona, Majorca, Madrid and Seville.
Employee solidarity does not end here though. The corporate volunteering group has also promoted charity races against gender violence, for food banks, accompanied elderly people and helped a school for employment to help disabled people to enter the job market, among others. In fact, the Red Eléctrica volunteer force has adapted to the lockdown scenario generated during the Coronavirus crisis and on 12 July, those employees who want to take part can compete in a Virtual Race against Gender Violence.
Besides doing actions with direct impact and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, our volunteers declare themselves to be happy with these initiatives: the average score for the 67 activities made last year was 4.6 out of 5. Scores as high as these encourage the Group to continue relying on the motivation of its corporate volunteers as a tool to convince employees of the variety of situations that exist and how they can help to build a better world for all of us whole enjoying greater satisfaction and personal development and pride in association.
Social activities continued during the months when the coronavirus kept us confined at home, adapting to the situation we were in. In response to one of the main consequences of lockdown for the elderly, a total of 25 Red Eléctrica volunteers and their families wrote letters and sent drawings to some of the older people at the residence run by the Fundación Orpea in Alcobendas (Madrid), to try to relieve their solitude in confinement. The activity had a single objective: to send a message of support and hope to this group, one of the most vulnerable in this health crisis.
In 2005, a small group of company employees decided to generously dedicate part of their free time to engaging in initiatives that revolved around charitable causes. This was the start of EnREDando, a corporate volunteering group that has grown and now, 15 years later, guides the charitable activity of many more people in the Red Eléctrica Group. The initiatives are now designed, planned and carried out all year round, guided by the Corporate Volunteering Management Model, a plan that covers the years 2018-2022 that is aligned with the 2030 Sustainability Commitment, which is also the basis for achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
