Daily Archives: July 29, 2022

Published 7 hours ago

Submitted by CyberGrants

An innovative corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy can substantially improve employee participation and workplace pride. Yet cultivating experiences that allow participants to give back in meaningful ways requires a scalable and inclusive solution. What's the best way to launch and improve a CSR technology platform?

Last month, CyberGrants Rob Livada, SVP of Solution Architecture, and Sasha DeMarre, Director of Solution Architecture, sat down with independent journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza to discuss launching a successful CSR strategy, meaningful ways to engage employees, and the importance of impact analytics. Check out the full webinar here!

Dont have time to view their full conversation? Weve got you covered. Explore key considerations and insights from their discussion below.

What is the first step in implementing an effective CSR strategy?

When you're planning to start your CSR programs, don't worry about going too big. Our most successful clients start very small and allow their CSR strategy to grow over time. Initiating something as simple as a volunteerism program is a great first step towards engaging your workforce in CSR. And that engagement factor is key to a successful and impactful program. Your organization should enable and cultivate a grassroots involvement within your employee base. By giving them a tool and a space to begin communicating and collaborating on community-based needs or local causes, you can scale your program from there. Employee engagement is crucial to an effective CSR strategy.

A common pitfall is to focus too heavily on budget and the monetary component of CSR like matching gifts and payroll giving. When youre just getting started, there are much simpler (and just as effective!) ways to break into the CSR space. Instead, lean into your employee base and uncover ways theyre already giving back and find out how your company can support those effortsthis is a great way to get your foot in the door.

Another key factor to consider is how your CSR strategy will tie into your companys mission and values. This will help you clarify the why behind your actions and help to foster more intentional CSR programs. By aligning corporate philanthropy with your company values, youll be able to hone in on where you want to direct your efforts. Is your company focused on clean energy? Food insecurity? Or childhood literacy? Once youve identified cause areas that align with your companys mission, itll be easier to get leadership and employee buy-in.

How do you recommend enabling employee-led CSR efforts?

At CyberGrants, we experienced how impactful employee empowerment can be firsthand. Each year, we host an annual pajama drive where employees donate pajamas to support Community Giving Tree and The Childrens Home Society of New Jersey. When this initiative began, it was organized by just a handful of employees. They communicated their initiative company-wide to drive participation, and with leadership buy-in and support, they were able to grow this program year after year. Today, it's a company-wide event where each individual is assigned a team with the goal of donating the most pajamas. A little friendly competition can go a long way and really drive participation as well as greater impact.

Were a relatively small company with around 200 employees but we were able to collectively donate nearly 4,000 pajamas last year alone. This really demonstrates the power of employee-led initiatives and how, when a company listens, it can have an incredible impact. So for those just starting out with a CSR program, listen to your employees, find out how theyre already giving back, and with company support, you can take their efforts to the next level.

For companies without dedicated CSR staff, who do you recommend to administer their initiatives?

This is a really common roadblock that we see every day. A prospective client will knock on our door and say, Hey, we need help but we dont have anyone to run with the program. We tend to start with HR professionals that manage benefits programs and recommend integrating your CSR offerings with specialty benefits. Just like you have PTO policies in place, you can just as easily offer Paid Volunteer Time Off (VTO) and manage and track those hours within your HR portal. The key to successfully doing so is communication. If your employees aren't aware you offer CSR benefits, they wont be able to participate.

Although we often see HR as that first point of contact, executive buy-in is key to scaling your programs. Leverage the power of your companys leadership team and encourage them to communicate giving opportunities across multiple channels, divisions, and markets. Pairing HR and executives can lead to a power couple for building a CSR program and encouraging participation.

Do you have any recommendations or best practices when making the case for an allocated CSR budget and resources?

You have to look at employee acquisition and retention. Were living in a very hot job market right now and for companies looking to grow, theyll need to be able to attract and retain their top talent. Being able to present your employees with a benefits package that goes beyond paid time off and encompasses employee giving is extremely compelling to existing and prospective employees. Theres a plethora of research to support the importance of social impact programs during the recruitment process. Over two-thirds of employees care about working for a socially responsible companyone that just doesnt put something on the website, but instills it in everything they do.

As more of our customers stray from a corporate-led CSR strategy and lean into employee-led efforts, increasing engagement and participation rates becomes simple. As a result, more and more of our customers have begun to engage their workforce in CSR from day one. As employees are being onboarded, their employers have begun to capitalize on this opportunity to engage them in conversations around giving and how or where they want to allocate their time and money.

By opening up these lines of communication during the early stages of employment, your workforce will be more excited about your social impact programs and more inclined to get involved. This is also the perfect opportunity to make employees aware of any existing programs you already have in place and how they can participate. During the onboarding process, share stories about how others within your organization give back. When employees see how their colleagues participate, theyll want to get in on all the social good too!

How do you implement a program that allows your workforce to respond rapidly when a disaster or crisis emerges?

The key to enabling employee giving during a disaster or crisis is constant communication. When an employee is first hired, you may inform them of your CSR offerings but if you dont continuously encourage employee participation or implement incentives, theyll likely forget this is even an option! For example, you may partner with NPOs or offer matching programs that would enable an employee to respond to a crisis. But if theyre not constantly reminded, your participation rates will plummet. Consider implementing recurring reminders via your company newsletter or something more in-depth like lunch and learns with your CSR software provider. Its certainly crucial to communicate how you enable employee giving during a crisis, but it also has to be multi-channel and ongoing if you want to achieve maximum social impact.

Another key way to ensure youre employees are engaged in rapid response is to offer multiple ways to give and flexible forms of giving. Historically, corporations could only respond if an emerging crisis was classified as a national disaster and the Red Cross was deployed. This is no longer the case. Since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, our customers have developed agility in their giving programs and enabled more flexible ways to support causes. Prior to 2020, volunteerism was almost always defined as going out into the field and attending in-person volunteer events. Today, volunteerism can happen from anywhere and encompasses a broader range of activities, including skills-based giving. The resulting flexibility that weve seen from our clients has made it easier for them to enable programs in real-time when a disaster or crisis emerges.

There has also been a massive uptick in employees helping employees. In recent years, there has been a plethora of climate disasters that likely affected your very own. As a result, corporations have begun to implement Employee Assistance programs (EAPs) where those who are experiencing hardships or have been affected by a disaster are eligible to receive monetary support from their company. Oftentimes, these funds are comprised of employee donations. Instead of donating to a local nonprofit, your workforce has the option to donate to colleagues or community members who have been affected.

How do you reward or recognize employees who participated in your CSR program in a meaningful way?

When it comes to recognizing employees for their efforts, the majority of participants wont want anything in exchange. This would contradict what it means to be a philanthropist! Instead, your employees will likely want to divert the recognition to the cause they supported and shed some light on the nonprofit itself. To do so, consider creating a space for employees to share further information about the causes they support and how they give back. A great way weve seen our customers do so is by enabling a chat feed right within the CyberGrants platform. Similar to a social media channel, your employees can post photos, share stories, and engage with each other in an authentic and unfiltered manner. When it comes to recognition, prioritize spotlighting the causes, rather than individuals.

Similarly, when youre considering ways to reward or recognize employees, think about how you can award them in a way that enables further social good. A rising trend in the CSR space, charitable spending accounts, does just that! Through a charitable spending account, your organization can award a certain amount of money to each employee for donation to a nonprofit of their choosing. Unlike matching gift programs, theres no need to submit a matching request or record their participationits done immediately! Beyond funds, you can also allocate a certain number of paid volunteer hours (VTO). Many volunteerism activities take place during the workday, making it difficult to balance both giving back and collecting a paycheck. By rewarding your employees with VTO hours, theyll be able to enable more social good within their local communities.

How do you recommend companies leverage technology to engage their workforce in CSR?

The number one consideration should always be ease of use. We live in a digital world and if your corporate philanthropy programs rely on manual, multi-step processes, your employees wont want to participateitll be too complicated! This is where CSR software comes into play. By leveraging a single-platform solution that is accessible via mobile and web browser, easy to log into, and supports flexible forms of giving, your employees are sure to get engaged. Once you have this technology in place, the possibilities for CSR programs are endless! Here are a couple of tried and true ways to engage your workforce in social impact:

1. Matching Gifts: Amplify employee engagement initiatives with matching gifts and promote specific causes that matter to your employees.

2. Payroll Deduction: Give employees the chance to support causes they care about on a recurring basis with payroll deduction.

3. Credit Card Giving: Make it easy and convenient for your employees to give back by enabling credit card giving.

4. Virtual Opportunities: Display virtual volunteerism opportunities with featured organizations or let employees search for remote opportunities independently with skills-based filters.

5. Service Projects & Acts of Kindness: Track internal service projects or acts of kindness, like making and delivering cards for healthcare workers on behalf of your company.

When it comes time to evaluate your CSR programs, what kind of data should be collected, and which stakeholders should be involved?

In regard to stakeholder involvement, everyone should be included. Whether it's your employees, executive leadership team, or consumers, they all have a stake in how youre driving impact within communities. Communicating your CSR programs can help attract and retain top talent and new customers, so sharing the impact your organization is making is critical for everyone involved.

Once youre ready to collect CSR program data, it's crucial to be intentional with the data youre attempting to pull. Think about what you already know and what information youre missing, this will drive your data analysis. You already know that your workforce is giving and volunteering, but do you know what causes theyre aligned with? Who are they giving to? This is key in building your companys impact story. For example, if youre able to identify that 50% of the causes your employees support were environmentally oriented, you can align future programs with this cause area. Beyond that, how many hours are they volunteering? Whats the average gift size? Where are these nonprofits located? Once you have deeper insights into how and where your employees give, you can support their efforts and build your CSR programs around causes your employees care about. And if you can show your leadership team where employees want to give and how, theyll be more likely to offer additional support and resources.

Ready to launch a CSR program within your organization? Discover how CyberGrants can help and book a demo with us today!

View original content here.

CyberGrants is a leading provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for corporate social responsibility management. CyberGrants mission is to provide innovative software and services in the most secure and efficient way to help companies manage all CSR initiatives from employee volunteer programs to the entire grants lifecycle. With nearly 20 years experience, CyberGrants has delivered grants management software and corporate philanthropy program software to many of the largest companies and foundations in the world, including more than 50% of the Fortune 100. For additional information on CyberGrants, visit http://www.cybergrants.com.

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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Global Drone Technology Market in Education Sector 2022-2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The drone technology market in education sector market and it is poised to grow by $499.16 mn during 2022-2026 progressing at a CAGR of 17.53% during the forecast period. The market is driven by the increased emphasis on STEM education, adoption of BYOD policy, and government initiatives and campaigns promoting drones in the education sector.

Additionally, this study identifies the increased adoption of online retail channels for purchasing educational products as one of the prime reasons driving the drone technology market in education sector market growth during the next few years. Also, the incorporation of thermal-imaging features in drones to improve learning in the dark and new product launches in the market will lead to sizable demand in the market.

The drone technology market in education sector market is segmented as below:

By Application

By End-user

By Geographical Landscape

Key Topics Covered:

1 Executive Summary

2 Market Landscape

3 Market Sizing

4 Five Forces Analysis

5 Market Segmentation by Application

6 Market Segmentation by End-user

7 Customer Landscape

8 Geographic Landscape

9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends

10 Vendor Landscape

11 Vendor Analysis

12 Appendix

Companies Mentioned

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/w96vwe

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Recent scenes of bumper-to-bumper traffic and queues of lorries along the roads leading to the English ports of Dover and Folkstone could become a fixture of UK travel reports without the right technological and diplomatic solutions.

The port of Dover was forced to declare a critical incident as people waiting to board ferries faced up to 11-hour wait times on Friday 22 July, the start of the busiest weekend for UK travel. The time to clear passport control was down to an hour by the following Sunday, but port authorities and ferry companies are anticipating another busy weekend ahead.

With summer holidaymakers eager to make up for lost time during the pandemic and freight traffic also increasing again post-COVID, the chance of continued congestion in and around UK transport hubs will be high for some time. At stake is not just missed connections and ruined holidays, but travellers stuck in traffic for hours without food and water and access to toilets. This is also a major challenge for freight moving from the UK to EU to export items including fresh produce that is at risk of spoiling if delayed.

Of course such scenes have become an increasingly familiar site on UK screens and front pages in recent years. The Brexit travel arrangements and cross border checks came into effect after the transition period ended in December 2020.

But this change was really only felt by the freight industry and to an extent passenger transportation sector in January 2022 as increased post-pandemic travel coincided with school holidays. P&O Ferries decision to suspend services following mass redundancies last Easter also had a similar effect.

If this was simply an operational issue it could be addressed with better resourcing and management, but there are also indications that its a structural and political issue resulting from Brexit. In this case, a combination of solutions will be needed to address the problem and reduce the risk of disruption for UK holidaymakers and freight transport.

There are several theories about why this disruption is happening. Resourcing is clearly an issue. UK passport-holders now require a stamp and a check on the reason for travel to EU and this requires extra time with passport officials.

Further, UK reports claim France provided only six border control officials for the 12 available booths at the Dover checkpoint, while French authorities cited a travel incident in the Channel Tunnel that delayed their inspectors. Ongoing discussions over who should pay what for staffing passport controls have not helped the situation.

Brexit also features quite highly as a major reason for the travel disruption, but the exact reasoning depends on political views. In the UK, Brexiteers blame French government not providing the appropriate support, while remainers and French officials point to this as another reason why the UK should not have left the EU.

Any solution to this travel disruption will involve addressing the twin challenges of resourcing and post-Brexit UK-European relations. More French resources at the UK border will help handle the increase in paperwork processing needed as a result of Brexit. But this will require a political solution, both in terms of mutual collaboration and appropriate financing.

And even as we accept this new normal in terms of movement, weather challenges on the channel could cause further havoc. In 2019, Storm Gareth caused a seven mile-long queue of lorries as channel crossings were stopping due to the weather conditions. Tackling this issue will require both governments to improve infrastructure around their ports to hold passenger and freight traffic when ferries have been cancelled or delayed due to bad weather

Technology will also play a key role in easing some of the processing delays. Digital apps for congestion monitoring and the ability to book document processing windows may also help. But

The UK governments goods vehicle movement service (GVMS) is a portal for freight transportation that provides a wallet for all the paperwork required for customs. This will help, but it is not the same as free movement and it will still entail processing delays compared to pre-Brexit. Small and medium companies may also need support and training to use of these digital tools for both import and export of goods between UK and EU.

From September, an EU requirement for biometric processing of all visitors to the EU from the UK (freight and passenger) will come into effect. This could cause processing delays for cars or lorry drivers at ferry or train terminals as it may require people to leave their vehicles for checks. The introduction of the EUs UK Visa waiver programme (ETIAS) in 2023 may offset some of this increase in border processing times, however.

While there are plenty of technical solutions that can address these ongoing issues for UK freight and tourist travel, such efforts must be underpinned by greater cross-border collaboration. Politicians on both sides of the Channel must work together to identify solutions to alleviate further travel chaos.

View original post here:

Why Englands port chaos could get worse and why technology alone isnt the answer - The Conversation

By the end of the year, a research center will open in Japan as part of a partnership project with the United States, on the basis of which the development of technologies for mass production of chips using the 2nm process technology will be carried out. In the future, the joint project will help companies build stable supply chains and insure themselves against tensions around the industry leader, Taiwan.

The center will take place on basis of a new research institute, which will also open this year as part of the project, it is in plans to use equipment and involve specialists from the US National Center for Semiconductor Technology. Initially, researchers from the two countries will focus on advanced chips based on the 2nm process technology; which will improve performance and reduce energy consumption compared to existing solutions. The center will also set up a prototype production line; and the projects ultimate goal is to start mass production of the chips in Japan by 2025.

The plans to launch a partnership project were announced back in May by Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Koichi Hagiuda and US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo in May, the parties worked out all the details. From the Japanese side, the participants of the project will be the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (NIAIST); the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken) and the University of Tokyo.

Taiwan now hosts more than 90% of the worlds sub-10nm semiconductor manufacturing capacity; with enterprises on the island planning to reach 2nm by 2025. At the same time; there is an opinion that Beijing is planning to annex the island to mainland China by force; and the United States is categorically not happy with this; most of the advanced chips come to the country from Taiwan. Upon completion of the research project, the technologies will tranfer to other countries that share American values; for example, South Korea. The initiative involves not only technological; but also financial support: one of the enterprises in Tokyo can receive investments for 1 trillion yen ($7.3 billion).

The world leader in the production of advanced chips today is Taiwans TSMC; followed by South Koreas Samsung and Americas Intel. The USA is also a center for the development of advanced microcircuits. The direction belongs, in particular, to NVIDIA and Qualcomm. And the Japanese companies Tokyo Electron, Screen Holdings, Shin-Etsu Chemical and JSR specialize in equipment and materials for the production of microcircuits. In the early 1990s, Japans share of the global semiconductor market was about 50%; but by now it has dropped to 15%.

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Japan and the US will develop technology for the production of 2nm chips - Gizchina.com

Archer Aviation has revealed this week that Honeywell will supply flight control actuation and thermal management technologies for its Maker electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Honeywells actuation technology is a key enabler of Archers 12 tilt 6 configurations, and its thermal management technology will help Archer provide a best-in-class in-cabin experience for its passengers.

According to Honeywell, its cutting-edge actuators can handle hundreds of micro adjustments and commands per second from aircrafts fly-by-wire computers. This results in more precise navigation, an important asset for an eVTOL thats meant to operate in dense urban environments.

Honeywells thermal management system provides several advantages compared to conventional systems, including lower weight, higher efficiency, and higher reliability in its size and power class. It will enhance the passengers comfort even more.

Equipped with 12 rotors, Archers Maker aircraft will be able to hit 150 mph (241 km/h) and have a medium range of approximately 60 miles (96 km). Archer claims that the Maker is 100 times quieter than conventional helicopters, humming along at around 45 dB when cruising at around 2,000 feet. This ultra-silent air taxi is set to become certified by 2024 and eventually operate without a pilot on board.

Honeywell has a wide variety of ready-now solutions that will create a more sustainable future for the aviation sector, and the technology were providing Archer is a great example of that, said Stphane Fymat, vice president and general manager, Urban Air Mobility and Unmanned Aerial Systems, Honeywell Aerospace. Were committed to making Urban Air Mobility an everyday form of travel, and Archers aircraft will help bring that vision to life.

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