CSR Report 2020
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CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY REPORT 2020 NORDIC TRADITIONS | UKRAINIAN SPIRIT | SUPERIOR SOFTWARE TABLE OF CONTENTS — Who We Are . 04 Key Facts . 06 Mission and Principles . 08 Adapting to New Normal . 10 Education Goes Online . 38 Community Development . 52 Ensuring Quality Delivery . 58 Business Against Covid-19 . 66 03 WHO WE ARE — Sigma Software is a place where Nordic Traditions meet Ukrainian Spirit to create Superior Software. We combine the best practices and approaches from Swedish and Ukrainian cultures. Taking high demand for quality, minimal hierarchy, freedom of decision-making, and attention to every opinion from Swedes. As a Ukrainian company we demonstrate flexibility and dedication to every project and every customer. We deliver smartest solutions for over 18 years to our customers around the globe – from Australia to the East Coast of the United States. We work with startups, product houses, and enterprises, providing the products and services that suit our clients the most. Company`s R&D centers are mastering the trending technologies and directions: AR/VR, Blockchain, Machine Learning, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and others. 04 05 KEY FACTS — Sigma Software provides cutting-edge technology solutions to our customers in the areas of government, telecommunications, advertising, automotive, gaming, and others. One of the largest Swedish companies in the field of software development working in Ukraine. Fortum, SAS, Viaplay, Formpipe, Verizon are among our valuable customers all over the world. 06 18 ON TOP-5 YEARS BEST IT EMPLOYERS 2,000 + TOP-100 PROJECTS OUTSOURCING COMPANIES 1,100 + MEMBER OF PEOPLE SIGMA GROUP 20 9 OFFICES COUNTRIES 07 NORDIC TRADITIONS UKRAINIAN SPIRIT SUPERIOR SOFTWARE 08 OUR MISSION — Provide premier value IT services, keeping the focus on helping our customers to reach their business goals. OUR PRINCIPLES — No matter what kind of project we undertake, we always listen, question, and deliver what promised. 09 ADAPTING TO NEW NORMAL: CHALLENGES AND RESULTS 10 The year 2020 brought us some serious challenges: lockdown and switching to remote work required businesses to place significant focus on fighting the consequences, implementing fast changes in order to adapt quickly to the new normal and ensure business continuity for our clients, partners, employees. Our main objectives remained as they were: § Providing premier quality services to our customers, helping them to overcome the challenges and use the opportunities that the crisis brought. § Education and community development to ensure the high quality of solutions we deliver. § Being a responsible employer and providing our employees with a supporting hand when they need it. 11 KEEPING TEAM CULTURE IN 2021 Anatoly Kochetov, Delivery Director The IT industry was best fitted for the new conditions resulting from the pandemic and lockdown. First of all, due to its ability to quickly switch to remote work. It’s not that difficult for those whose basic toolkit is narrowed to a laptop and Internet access. For example, it took us only three days to switch over a thousand people to 100% remote work. Eventually, most companies, not just tech-related, realize that this is Ok for everyone to work in this mode. Today large brands such as Facebook, Twitter, or MasterCard are cautious about quarantine easing. They do not prohibit working from the offices, but recommend to continue work in the remote mode if possible. The question that is on everyone’s mind is how to maintain the culture of openness, innovation, and productivity? It is involved and efficient people, who develop the best products and services and create additional value for the client after all. This helps the company to maintain its position on the market. Surely with switching to remote, the company faced significant transformation, however, the biggest challenges we met were mental ones. We had to change our habits and minds to adapt to the conditions that actually no one was prepared to. The first thing we`ve noticed is an increase of the average number of employees` working hours. Obviously, it takes time to develop the discipline of working from home and to build clear boundaries between the working and non-working hours. 12 13 When the number of hours goes high, it surely has a positive effect for business, but you have to understand that it is short-term. Lack of work-life balance, combined with social isolation may become very dangerous in long term though. So, our main task was to make sure our specialists can handle these temporary difficulties and escape this widespread trap. During such periods, when we interact in virtual space only, it is important to fill in any information vacuum and use multiple communication channels. We brought in every chance to reach our people: through our corporate radio, internal social network, online meetings, events, and team buildings, we kept our specialists tuned to the company`s news and updates on a weekly basis. Now we know it for sure that despite the speedy development of modern communication tools, people are still very sociable creatures. Those tools may help us make our communication more efficient, but they cannot replace personal communication. Keeping this in mind, we tried to get as much off them as we could to relieve the feeling of being locked during the quarantine period: virtual bars, online quizzes, and informal meetings worked very well for us and helped to maintain our team cohesion. To support that culture and atmosphere we created new events: knowledge-sharing sessions on different topics at lunchtime, online morning yoga classes, etc. The same close contact we maintained with our customers and partners. Staying in touch gives a better understanding of the clients' business climate and needs, when and where our support and assistance is needed the most to help overcome the lockdown impact. The highest ever scores we received this year on the results of Customers` Satisfaction Survey make it clear that we`re on the right way. 14 15 ONLINE FIKA — Since Sigma Software is a part of Swedish Sigma Group, we organize Fika — traditional coffee breaks in the Swedish lifestyle. It is the time for informal conversation between colleagues, for asking questions, and sharing essential things like company's values and culture. Before the lockdown emerged from the woodwork, we had it in each office as an in-person meeting. Anyone could come and ask founders any questions, voice ideas to discuss, or improvements they see the company can implement. This spring we had it online for the first time. It brought together 600 people, and 81% were satisfied with the amount of news and information afterward. This unique and warm tradition is a great opportunity to distract from work and chat with colleagues. As you know, the Swedish approach is about the the minimum hierarchy and maximum inclusion of each and every employee. Fika is a great occasion to confirm this again. 16 17 1,100+ PEOPLE, 3 DAYS, 100% SWITCHING TO REMOTE Julia Nilga, Chief Infrastructure Officer It was the time of the first COVID-19 cases registered in Wuhan, when we began to work on ensuring business continuity, and intensified this work with the disease spreading outside China. We started with rigorous analysis of the possible scenarios and came up with an action plan in case a lockdown would take place. To make sure we can be flexible enough and respond quickly to all the changes, we started with rebuilding our VPN system. Earlier it was configured for office work, so that the company could control the presence of antivirus and OS updates on the corporate devices. After the rebuilding, it allowed working from any location with no limitations. Such a transformation normally takes up to 6 months to implement. We managed to do it in two months. Reshaping VPN was half the battle. We then had to make sure everyone in our big team has all the accesses, all the necessary instructions, is able to connect, and can rely on the help of Service Center any tick of the clock. We also had to take care about staying in touch at various channels people might wanted to use for contacting us – Jira tickets, messengers, emails, phone calls, internal social network, and more. In urgent cases, system administrators even gave house calls to employees to help them with equipment setup. → 18 19 Speaking of which, the company covered the costs of delivering equipment, chairs, tables, and all the necessary stuff to employees homes. We have elaborated a clear schedule for deliveries taking into account all the variables to ensure business continuity. As of now, we are working on replacement of the hard set workplaces with laptops for all the employees of Sigma Software to provide every and each of them with the maximum flexibility. The lockdown in Ukraine was announced and lifted, but Sigma Software still works remotely. For those who needs to visit the company premises strict sanitary rules are in action. All surfaces that are often touched are disinfected several times a day, face mask requirement is in force, disinfectant and masks are freely available. Of course we all hope that some critical cases won`t happen to our people, still, to be on the safe side, we have also purchased oxygen concentrators and pulse oximeters that employees and their families can use. The company rethinks usage of its offices spaces, since we have now a solid proof that remote work is possible and even more preferable for some people. On a basis of the HR survey conducted within the company in the spring 2020, we have decided to rent out part of our office spaces, while the other part has two types of workplaces. Fixed ones reserved to certain specialists, who cannot work from their homes, and bookable, so that all the employees working remotely had an opportunity to come to the office when it is necessary.