Ceridian: Building employee engagement by giving back to the community

“We believe that strong engagement with our PayBack Foundation shows our colleagues’ satisfaction with the company.”

Ceridian employees taking part in the ‘Adare to Survive’ challenge

What the company did

Ceridian wanted to find a way to pay back into the local community and, in 1997, Ceridian UK created its own registered charity – The PayBack Foundation. Ceridian Ireland started The Payback Foundation in Ireland in 2014. The Foundation is funded entirely through voluntary donations and fundraising and our colleagues run and take part in those activities to support it.

The PayBack committee in our Limerick Office leads all the fundraising activities from start to finish, but they depend on the other staff members for any activity to succeed. Everyone in the office is also encouraged to propose new fundraising ideas. In 2014, these included a mini marathon, the Great Limerick Run, a fun day and Christmas raffles. As a result of fundraising activities, Ceridian Ireland supported the purchase of a digital wheelchair scales in October 2014 and presented it to St. Gabriel’s School & Centre in December. The scales are of great benefit to the centre, as it protects the staff and the children from potential injury.

In 2015, activities have so far included the St. Patrick’s Day Bake Sale, a Volunteer Day in the vicinity of St. Gabriel’s School & Centre, the Great Limerick Run and Adare to Survive – a 7.5km military-style obstacle course in County Limerick. Every month, we also have internal Communications Day collections.

Our PayBack committees always consider the extent of each fundraising activity. We make sure that our colleagues are not too tight on work deadlines when organising a weekday activity. At the end of the day, we want to make sure that we do our jobs first to make our clients happy!

The Business Benefits

As our employee numbers continue to grow, we feel that we have now the manpower to hold events, raise money, and to make a real difference. These activities have helped to benefit employee engagement by increasing social interaction and team work between our colleagues. We believe that stronger engagement with our PayBack Foundation shows the satisfaction of our colleagues within the company. Our engagement survey has always produced 100% and employee retention is also very positive within Ceridian. In terms of our reputation, we believe that corporate social responsibility is a must regardless of the size of the company. We are proud to have been given a framed citation by Chambers Ireland recognising the work that we have done in order to improve the lives of our employees and enhancing the local community in which we operate.

The Company

Ceridian Ireland is a multinational provider of HR software and outsourced payroll services. It employees over 30 people directly in the mid-west but has significant growth plans over the next five years as its product base continues to increase. Ceridian is currently the Irish Payroll Association’s Outsourced Payroll Provider of the Year and Employer of the Year. This is due to the excellent environment in which its valued staff work, which includes a commitment to providing growth opportunities within a culture of work-life balance.