Finalist
Founder’s Day – the 1000 Hour Volunteer Challenge
Summary of work
Every year Takeda marks the foundation of the company in 1781 (Founder’s Day) by celebrating its history with a programme linked to the company’s unique corporate philosophy known as Takeda-ism. Our challenge was to develop a programme that combined this internal celebration with the launch of the company’s new visualisation of its global ‘Corporate Philosophy and Vision 2025’, which is represented by a garden illustration, with each element representing a journey on the company’s strategic roadmap.
With survey results showing that employees wanted an event that ‘gave something back to society’, we developed an employee-volunteering day for all staff at the Adventure Learning Foundation (ALF), a charity that provides outdoor activities and learning opportunities for children. The activities were designed to bring to life the garden visual, eg, the building of a 400m footpath, planting, and painting.
To build longevity to the programme, we also launched the ‘1,000 Hour Challenge’ to encourage employees to continue to donate volunteering hours to charities.
As well as providing the opportunity for Takeda employees to ‘give something back to society’, it turned the theory of ‘Vision 2025’ into practice, engaging the team and fostering a deep understanding of the company’s corporate philosophy.
Judges’ comments
We just couldn’t fault the level of engagement in this entry and admired how the volunteering had been sustained and had made an external contribution. They found the stakeholder feedback to be diverse and proof of some real changes in perception and belief.
