Sage Blog

It’s that time of the year again when we publish our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report and it always reminds me just how much we’ve achieved and what great activities happened last year across the business. It’s been another hectic twelve months for the CSR team but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Leigh Thompson, Sage's CSR Consultant

Here at Sage, we believe that being a responsible business and committing to Corporate Social Responsibility isn’t just about giving money away and getting involved in loads of stuff (although we know this helps sometimes).

Actually, what we really care about is doing the right things, at the right time, in the right way, and that acting responsibly isn’t something we just talk about or do from time to time, it’s a way of life.

Our CSR activity covers our approach to getting greener, engaging our people and treating them in the right way, learning and development, our focus on customers and suppliers as well as community commitment and charitable donations, so there’s a lot going on!

As part of my role, I get out into the community and speak to businesses, small and large, about their own CSR activity, so we can learn from them, and hopefully help them by sharing what we know too.

As well as spreading the CSR word externally, it’s really important  to engage our people. In many organisations, like ours, they’re the power behind your CSR efforts. All you need to do is involve them in decisions where you can, let them know what you’re doing, and how they can get involved.

So whether they’re helping us to support charitable events, volunteering in the community, coming up with new ways to be ‘greener’ or living and breathing our guiding principles of simplicity, agility, innovation, trust and integrity, it’s our people who put our responsibilities into action.

Leigh Thompson, Sage CSR Consultant

To do our bit for Sport Relief we turn our call centre over to become a Sport Relief Call Centre run by our very own team of Sage volunteers. It’s great fun and totally hectic!

Sport Relief

When it comes to being part of the Sport Relief Call Centre, our mailbox goes into overdrive trying to keep up with responses from volunteers.  It’s great for them and for us, and now in our fifth year we knew it was going to be a tough challenge to top previous years.

A live performance from a solo singer kick started the night with a real bang, followed with ‘survival’ packs, a magician and a buffet which all went down a treat for our team of 103 volunteers who took a staggering £100,379.04

Sage’s very own magician / balloon artist kept us entertained with rope and card tricks and made sure no-one went home empty handed, whether it was with a sword a dog, a palm tree or a hat.

Prizes were dished out left right and centre from, bottles of wine, meals for two,  basket ball and football tickets and plenty boxes of chocolates which went down a storm.

A few celebrity guests popped in to say Hi, and chatted to volunteers, Joey Barton, Steve Harmison, Neil Killeen and Phil Mustard, at one point we thought Joey was here for the night after he pulled up a chair to chat to a couple of volunteers.

After enough food to feed the five thousand, our traditional pizza fest arrived right in the middle of our busiest time of night again! But all was in good hands, out went our refreshment’s team with their hostess trolley’s whizzing in and out making sure everyone got a hot slice. With a lot of laughs and one or two green faces through eating too much it was yet another spectacular night.

Written by  Gemma Booth; by day a Sage Sales Administrator, by night a lean mean Sport Relief organising machine.