ON Semiconductor : Onsemi Expands Reach of Employee Volunteer Program Globally

by Jackie Terry - 2022-12-05

onsemi understands the importance of having the company and its employees not only perform well, but also make a positive impact on people's lives. To increase employee engagement and enrich communities around the world, we recently expanded volunteer program benefits to employees in Asia and Europe. We initially introduced the employee volunteer program (EVP) in North America in 2017, inspiring employees to volunteer their time, talent, energy and effort in their local communities.

Through the EVP, employees may volunteer with eligible organizations during company time for up to one day, traditionally 8-12 hours per year depending on their role at the company, while receiving their typical pay for the time spent. Employees are encouraged to participate in volunteer events organized by the company as well.

To incentivize goodness, we also match our employees' volunteer efforts through a dollars-for-doers program, where onsemi donates $10 per hour (or country equivalent) to approved charities and educational institutions for each hour volunteered up to $1,000 per year (or country equivalent), per employee (this equates to a volunteer matching grant, which goes directly back to the cause they supported as a volunteer). Effective November 14^th, 2022, the EVP is now offered to all employees globally.

onsemi also supports employees in their monetary giving efforts by matching donations dollar-for-dollar up to $1,000 (or country equivalent) per year, per person, with a minimum of $1 (or country equivalent), to qualified organizations.

Employees have the flexibility to make donations, get contributions matched, find and sign up for volunteer opportunities, track their volunteer time for dollars-for-doers through an online giving portal accessible from a company computer or smart device. This makes it easy for employees to create lasting change for the causes they care most about.

"With these initiatives, we are able to harness the collective goodwill of our people and channel it to make a difference in the world, which allows us to make employees' generosity go even further," said Kim Luu, senior director of Sustainability and Environmental, Social and Governance at onsemi. "This an effective way to promote goodwill and boost morale amongst employees."

Programs like these at companies can offer an ongoing opportunity to tap into the skills and passions of its employees to make an impact, solve real challenges and expand human possibility. Science has also proven that helping others has a massive benefit to one's mental health. Additionally, people who volunteer regularly are generally less stressed out and maintain a higher level of positivity than most.

"Charitable organizations and schools worldwide face resource constraints in the communities where we work and live," said Felicity Carson, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at onsemi. "Now that all of our employees have these great benefits, they are all equally empowered to help organizations reach their goals."

As we move into the end of the year, we want to acknowledge International Volunteer Day on December 5^th, as designated by the United Nations General Assembly. This is our chance to celebrate volunteers and organizations for their tireless efforts while promoting the great work they are doing to make a difference among their local communities. We encourage everyone to get out and volunteer.

On this unique holiday dedicated to volunteerism, we are very proud to recognize a few employees who have either used their paid time off to volunteer or have been exceptionally active in giving back - we thank them for their drive and social impact:

Using Dollars-for-Doers for Good

John Murphy works as a manufacturing trainer at the onsemi site in Gresham, Oregon, and gives back by using his skills and experience to assist local nonprofits. Murphy has been volunteering with Meals on Wheels People in Portland for over 16 years and drives supplies to homeless shelters.

"During the pandemic, one of my stops was to the Ambleside Center in Gresham, near the onsemi plant. After a few weeks, I found out that they needed help with the weekly deliveries", said Murphy. "For nearly two years, I have been driving a route through Gresham, delivering a weeks' worth of meals to folks who would be food-insecure without them.

Additionally, Murphy has been active in supporting the local Red Cross chapter since high school, when he began volunteering to help at the student blood drives and later as a blood donor. He actually logged his first donation at the age of 16! During college, he continued to donate whole blood and at that time, was type matched with a blood product recipient in Idaho.

"They asked me to donate platelets for that patient and I have been doing that ever since! After I returned from a decade living overseas, I have supported this agency with bi-weekly donations, up to 24 times a year for more than 20 years," said Murphy.

In a recent interview, Murphy said that he donates because he can and that it is very important to him to give in such a simple way.

"When I volunteer for the local Red Cross or Meals on Wheels People, onsemi donates $10 per hour (up to 100 hours a year) to these organizations, which shows great support of our local community," Murphy said glowingly.

To-date, John has logged 77 hours for various causes thus equating to $770 for the charities he supported as a volunteer.

Making it Possible to Volunteer During Working Hours

Mimi Chuo is a human resources representative at our Taipei, Taiwan office. She recently organized a volunteer event at which employees at the site were able to use their paid time off to volunteer. As a group, employees visited Eden Social Welfare Foundation, which serves persons with disabilities, on October 20, 2022. Eden was founded in Taiwan, but their service scope now includes other countries. While at the charity's facility, nine employees spent four hours cleaning public wheelchairs. Each volunteer was responsible for cleaning one wheelchair and the tasks ranged from high-pressure washing to vacuuming and steam washing as well as cleaning them with bleach wipes. The volunteers then fixed the wheelchairs to ensure it was functioning normally.

"This volunteer activity was important to our group because we not only helped Eden with cleaning the wheelchairs but also realized that these individuals can now have a normal life, even though there may still be many things they need to conquer," said Chuo.

This was equivalent to 36 hours of work that the cause can now focus on for other tasks. According to the Independent Sector, the current estimated value of each volunteer hour is $29.95, so this activity saved the charity $1,078 in staffing costs. In this situation, workplace volunteering met community needs and produced positive social outcomes with built-in results to contribute positively to employee engagement, reputation, trust and team building.

Employee Volunteers Take Action and Create Lasting Change

Calvin Lau, a human resources representative in our Hong Kong office, recently organized a volunteer event for site employees who used paid time off to join. As a group, 11 employees prepared 2,236 meals at the Sham Shui Po Kitchen at Food Angel, which is the food rescue and assistance program offered by Bo Charity Foundation, on November 4. During the event, participants got to learn more about the food preparation process as well as how the program rescues edible surplus food from different sectors in the food industry that would otherwise be disposed of as waste.

Realizing how serious global food waste has become and that there are many low-income groups suffering from hunger and under-nutrition, the onsemi Hong Kong team wanted to get more involved. While Hong Kong may seem to be a wealthy city, there are still over a million people living below the poverty line. At the same time, it is estimated that over 3,300 tons of food waste are thrown into Hong Kong landfills daily.

"The Employee Volunteer Program not only allowed us to reduce food waste at the source by experiencing the daily works of Food Angel through a team building activity, but it also provided us with an opportunity to understand food waste, hunger and poverty," said Lau. "Our employees found this experience to be both inspiring and memorable, and learned how this food will care for the needy in our local community."

Food Angel rescues 45 tons of food each week so it can produce over 17,000 nutritionally balanced, at-home meals every day while also providing about 11,000 other meals and food packages. onsemi's dollars-for-doers benefit allowed the cause to receive an additional $440 volunteer matching grant for the 44 hours these employees volunteered.

Volunteering can be an incredibly rewarding experience, but also intimidating if you've never volunteered before. Many of us want to give back in some way but struggle to find the right opportunity to get involved. Luckily, there are many ways to volunteer your time - you just have to find the right match for you.

A great way to get started is to reach out to your local United Way as their mission is to help create health, education and financial stability in every community. Check out volunteer opportunities they have near you, and search for available volunteer jobs filtered by your interests today: https://www.unitedway.org/get-involved/volunteer.

You can also visit other sites geared around skill-based volunteering such as: VolunteerMatch.org, Idealist.org, Handsonnetwork.org, Catchafire.org, Serve.gov and TaprootPlus.org.

To learn more about the Giving Now program at onsemi, visit the Giving Now program page.

Happy volunteering!