The last few months has been extremely challenging for nearly every organisation. As a User Group, enabling our members to share experiences is central to what we do, therefore has been fantastic hear about how some of you have gone over and above to support local charities during this difficult time. We are sure there are many other good news stories out there, so we’d really like to hear from you.
Have you got a good news story you’d like to share with us? If so email beth.fountain@sapusers.org with the details
Mercury Engineering
In Mercury we are running an initiative called Beyond 5K. In name it draws parallels with our company strategy, which is called ‘’Beyond 50’’ and also the 5km limit imposed during lockdown. The objectives of the initiative is to:
- Encourage physical and mental wellbeing
- Create an element of team collaboration and challenges amongst our colleagues
- Support charities that have seen their normal funding activities impacted by the cancellation of events
Salford City Council
The Salford Foundation has set up the Digital Buddies Programme.
Digital Buddies is a new 'social connection' and support project in Salford and part of our COVID-19 response which aims to help people who are struggling to use their phone, tablet or computer to communicate well. It will help by linking each person with a trained young person who will provide remote one-to-one support to help them solve their particular digital skills challenges.
They also worked with KPMG to set up both child and adult friendly remote coding classes for the community in Salford.
Centiq
In response to COVID-19, Centiq made a management decision to help companies who are in limbo for their SAP projects to be able to use their services for funded Discovery assessment for SAP on Azure. This is a full assessment and would provide two costing options Lean or reference architecture to suit the companies needs and ambitions.
Please see the details here: https://centiq.co.uk/discovering-the-future/
Avantra
Avantra CEO, John Appleby has written a blog around his own personal guide to managing mental health during lockdown. He does not claim to be an expert, but has listed what has helped him stay grounded over this extensive period, in the hope to help others.
The blog can be found here: https://www.peopleprocesstech.com/tips-for-mental-health-during-a-lockdown/
TJC Group
As a response to COVID-19 outbreak that blocked personal interaction, in April TJC launched an initiative to enable remote 1-2-1 meetings with TJC experts across Europe and India to answer people’s concerns about SAP Data Management. It’s a chance to chat with a subject matter expert about a particular topic for 15-30 minutes to seek advice. SAP Managers / ERP architects / Tax Managers, just have to choose the topic of interest and schedule a complimentary session on the date and time that best suits their agenda.
Find out more here: https://www.tjc-group.com/insights/bridge-the-gap-with-the-1-4-hour-meetup-with-tjc-experts
Martin Crangle - Borg Warner
As soon as we were told we had to stay indoors, I could hear the collective groan of the nation.
Myself and some of my friends regularly attend quizzes, easy way to get free drinks when you are as intelligent as me and the prize is a barrel of beer.
So I started to investigate interactive and online quizzes.
For those volunteers that attended the session down in Birmingham last year, I invested in the same tool Roy Clarke used.
I communicated to friends, family and colleagues that I would be facilitating a daily quiz, to keep people connected, to alleviate the boredom, and provide social interaction for those not leaving the house.
So since 1st April, I have been hosting a quiz a day, start time is 19:00 and lasts about an hour.
Some people are more interested in winning than chatting, but that doesn’t matter, its all about the social aspect, we are social animals, and for some, the lack of interaction would have caused depression and mental health issues.
The feedback has been fantastic, and I have about 5 or 6 regulars, some attend now and again, and some of only attended once.
Friendships have been formed, relationships strengthened, and we have all got to know each other a lot more.
I have recently reduced the quiz to Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
If you would like to join in, please drop me a message.
Onapsis
Onapsis is deeply invested in not only protecting the world’s largest and most important organisations from the increased threat of cyber attacks, but also in expanding these concepts to support people in need across communities.
The company's corporate charitable giving program, OnaCares, will be donating to charity each time someone engages with them. Their hope and goal is to inspire those around them to help make an impact, one act of kindness at a time.
Join them in their efforts to give back by attending any of their upcoming virtual webinars, requesting a business risk assessment or engaging with them at trade shows!
Check out Onapsis' events page to learn more.
Permanent TSB
I’m writing this as Chairperson of our Wellbeing Committee and would like to share with you one our simple but effective initiatives from May (for mental health awareness month). One of our committee members had the great idea to create gratitude posters. We issued an internal communication inviting colleagues to share with us what they are grateful for during lockdown.
We received wholesome input from over 250 of our colleagues and we created three posters sharing this feedback anonymously. We shared our first gratitude poster with colleagues on May 1st for Ibec’s National Workplace Wellbeing Day, and we shared two more throughout the month. Both creating the posters, and reading them put smiles on colleagues faces and was also a way of connecting us while we’re apart.
I’d recommend anyone looking for a little boost during this time to try this initiative too!
