Commitment to making a difference
KPMG’s leadership of the community investment agenda is supported by the firm’s community investment strategy, which has been developed out of KPMG’s global agenda. The firm’s global vision is to ‘build and sustain our reputation as the best firm to work with by ensuring that our people, our clients and our communities achieve their full potential’. A key global value is for KPMG’s people to be committed to their communities and this has helped shape the company’s approach to community investment, which aims to ‘deliver outstanding benefit to the business and community through engaging our people in key social issues’. The firm has focused their activities around four key themes:
- Education
- Environment
- Employability
- Enterprise
KPMG is currently reviewing its community engagement strategy, with a new strategy due to be in place by September 2012.
Supporting communities
KPMG has delivered on the commitments it set as part of its original CommunityMark submission. The firm has reviewed volunteering programmes across the business and delivered improvements to increase the difference made in the community:
- KPMG has increased participant levels and the level of interactive challenges in the Team Challenge programme financial year 2010-11, now engaging over 100 community groups and partners. To underpin this approach, KPMG has developed a ‘Create Your Own Challenge’ toolkit to enable employees to work alongside community groups they are already supporting. KPMG has also carried out a number of Team Challenges with its People Charity such as organising a special day out for the young people of a local Barnado’s project.
- The firm is seeking to match client relationships with relationships held with community partners. A database has been developed for employees to share existing relationships that they may hold in their community, enabling the firm to map community activity and investigate new opportunities for collaboration and relationship building.
- Ongoing feedback from KPMG’s clients tells the firm that work in the community is increasingly important as a key differentiator in client pitches, whilst the knowledge gained from community investment activity is supporting the firm’s understanding of the issues affecting clients.
Engaging suppliers
Engaging suppliers to support community programmes illustrates a company’s leadership of the community investment agenda. KPMG has been a key advocate of the campaign for a living wage, which calls for every worker in the country to earn enough to provide their family with the essentials of life. The Living Wage is an hourly rate set independently by the Greater London Authority and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for the rest of the country. Since 2006, KPMG has engaged all third party suppliers to the firm to ensure that all their employees received the living wage. Such an approach has been highlighted by the Living Wage Awards and the Government as a model for other businesses to follow. KPMG continues to lead on this agenda through its support for the Living Wage Foundation.
The firm has also worked in partnership with businesses and community organisations such UBS, Societe Generale and ELBA to fund Project Central Hackney, which aims to involve businesses to promote socio-economic regeneration of the community to accompany the large-scale physical regeneration taking place in the area.
For more information on KPMG UK LLP’s approach to community investment, please visit http://www.kpmg.com/UK/en/WhoWeAre/WhatMakesUsDifferent/OurApproachToCorporateResponsibility/KPMGInTheCommunity/Pages/default.aspx
