Employees encouraged to ‘do more good’

One of Twilio’s top executives says tech workers should be contributing more to programs for social good.

Twilio chief social impact officer Erin Reilly. Source: Supplied.

Activist CEOs are on the rise in 2020, with billionaires in increasing number pledging percentages of their net worth towards social good, and companies offering ‘days on’ for their employees to do community service.

Some suggest these are merely acts of virtue signalling, however, and that the entrepreneurs – and their employees – don‘t have any real intention to create impactful change over the long term.

Global tech companies including Atlassian, Zoom and Okta have signed up for WePledge, a new social impact program from Silicon Valley tech outfit Twilio that its chief social impact officer Erin Reilly says is designed to remedy the short term thinking that can sometimes plague philanthropic efforts.

The WePledge program – inspired by the Pledge 1 per cent movement – asks employees to give 1 per cent of their time and resources to ‘do good’.

Ms Reilly, who has held senior roles at Google and Yahoo, told The Australian that to date, over 1000 Twilio employees – otherwise known as Twilions – have donated over $1 million and contributed 6,000 hours of service to social good.

Employees have been more engaged thanks to the program, Ms Reilly said, which has been particularly helpful during COVID-19 with all the company’s employees working remotely.

She added that while there’s some negative perception in the community around the impact of tech companies in society, Twilio has put ‘social good’ at its core. She thinks more companies should do the same.

“One of the reasons Twilio has created a chief social impact officer role is because we want to be proactively thinking about how we will ensure that the world is, on the whole, better, and is better off because Twilio exists,” she said.

“I sit in those executive team meetings and strategic planning sessions, and that is part of what we do and we‘re thinking about it all the time. It’s not a side thing.:

Twilio had the biggest tech IPO of 2018 and is still growing quickly, including in Australia.

“Australia in particular is on the leading end of corporate impact, and understanding that individual impact can add up to making the world a better place. Australian companies are taking corporate social responsibility seriously and we think Australia in particular is a great place for WePledge to take off.”

Twilio, which provides communications capabilities for other companies, is now calling on all individuals to join the WePledge program even if they don’t work at a tech company.

“This is a global movement,” Ms Reilly said. ”We want everyone to commit at least 1 per cent of their time and resources to doing good. It‘s a simple action, and it helps you feel part of something larger.”