6 Xerox Employees Granted Full-Time, Fully Paid Sabbaticals to Lend Business Skills to Boost Nonprofits

6 Xerox Employees Granted Full-Time, Fully Paid Sabbaticals to Lend Business Skills to Boost Nonprofits

The St. Joseph’s Neighborhood Center in Rochester, N.Y., relies on 160 volunteers to provide healthcare services that cover more than 3,000 uninsured or underinsured patients – or 18,000 visits – every year. Yet every single appointment has to be scheduled in a plain old paper calendar by hand. That’s about to change, thanks to Xerox Corporation (NYSE:XRX) employee Patrick Waara. He’s spending the next year at St. Joseph’s to build a new computerized system for appointment and volunteer scheduling and all patient records, bringing a whole new level of efficiency to the nonprofit organization. “I can’t wait to see the productivity gains,” Waara says.

Waara is just one of six Xerox employees who were granted a “Social Service Leave” in 2007 to devote their full time to critical community service projects. During their leaves – which range from six months to one year – the employees continue to receive their full pay and benefits from Xerox. They will apply their technical, business and personal skills to help nonprofits address a range of social issues, such as supporting people with mental illness and helping orphaned children find new families.

The Xerox Foundation’s Social Service Leave has granted sabbaticals of up to one year to 475 employees since the program began in 1971. One of few corporate sabbatical programs that provide paid opportunities for employees to volunteer full-time, Social Service Leave is believed to be the oldest of its kind in American business.
“Investing the skills of these talented, tenacious Xerox employees into their communities will reap rewards for years to come,” says Anne Mulcahy, Xerox chairman and CEO. “Xerox has lived a commitment to corporate responsibility through Social Service Leave and other programs for decades, so we’ve seen the power that just one person can have to make a difference.”

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