“I stick to the principle of keeping my promises both in business and in my private life, and I act in a manner which is focused on sustainability. I believe this goes beyond ’just’ ecology topics. Through self-reflection and my conscience, I am constantly trying to improve myself to feel like a valuable member of society. From a business perspective, I find it satisfying to work for a company that meets an important social need with the insurance principle."
Simon Spichtin, Accounting
Our social responsibility
Baloise sees itself as a part of society and shares responsibility for it. Baloise attaches great importance to volunteer work and promoting the Swiss militia system. Our employees can actively participate in various voluntary projects. This includes environmental projects in the UNESCO Entlebuch Biosphere and the Basel animal shelter, as well as social projects for people with disabilities, road safety, sensitisation to the opportunities and risks of digitalisation and the promotion of the Swiss militia system and thus political commitment among employees and young people.
As a Swiss company, Baloise is passionate about voluntary work. We regularly organise employee events based on this topic at our Head Office, with the aim of motivating our employees to participate on a voluntary basis.
Baloise is also one of the signatories of the declaration by economiesuisse and the Confederation of Swiss Employers, which highlights the importance of the militia principle. This declaration is an obligation as well as a responsibility for Baloise to support the volunteer work of its employees in the best possible way.
We not only promote the political involvement of our employees through flexible working conditions and working time models, but also support the political participation of young people. In 2019, we led a workshop for the campaign “Change Switzerland!” with young people to develop ideas that they submitted via the platform www.engage.ch.
The Association of Swiss Communes (ASC) declared 2019 the “Year of militia work”. The goal is to strengthen and develop the militia system through interdisciplinary exchange and discussion. As a partner, we support this project, the ideas competition and the associated event “Sustainable militia system 2030”.
In cooperation with the Basel Chamber of Commerce, we support the business weeks which bring high school students closer to business contexts and offer them a business-oriented learning experience via teamwork. On the one hand, Baloise employees work as specialised teachers in the context of a business week, and on the other, we also enable schools to hold a business week on our premises. This allows high school students to experience the real working atmosphere of a company. For us, the communication of business contexts to younger generations as well as the cooperation between a school and a business are the main focus.
As a company, we actively promote work which serves society and the community.
We have been offering our employees in Switzerland the opportunity to carry out valuable volunteer work in the social and environmental sector since 2010. The varied projects include:
- Volunteer programmes at the UNESCO Biosphere Reserves: programme 2018 and 2016
- Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme at the Basel animal shelter
- Walk in the Creux du Van area with children and young people with multiple disabilities
- Programme for people with disabilities at the PluSport day
In Belgium, employees of Baloise help out at a centre for young people with emotional or behavioural issues once a year. Every employee voluntarily gives up one day of annual leave for this.
In addition, we support the Fonds Emilie Leus foundation in the fight against alcohol on Belgian streets.
More information about our commitment in Belgium (in German, French and Italian).
In Belgium and Luxembourg, Baloise is also active on Christmas markets every year, with proceeds benefiting social institutions.
We live by the idea of solidarity. Not only together as an insurance company, but also through the individual employees, who are working Group-wide for numerous other small and large-scale activities for the community.
Baloise attaches great importance to innovation in the field of digitalisation and the innovative development of its own business activities. As part of our voluntary commitment, we raise awareness of various digitalisation topics among employees and our customers of all ages through the Baloise Digital Pathfinders and act as a preventative through communication and information sharing.
More information and contact details on the Baloise Digital Scouts website (only in German).
Our digital pathfinders are experts in IT, technology and digitalisation, as well as specialists in cyber security. However, their backgrounds are highly diverse: whether it’s IT, communication or customer service – each of the volunteer pathfinders has in-depth expertise on digital topics which they pass on to the community. The Baloise Digital Pathfinders therefore directly address two strategic goals of our Simply Safe strategy. On the one hand, knowledge sharing, cooperation and collaboration are strengthened among employees, contributing to our goal of being among the top 10 per cent employers in the industry by 2021. On the other hand, we offer our customers free added value, showing that we take our customer focus seriously and that you simply feel safer with Baloise as a partner. This is another step towards our goal of reaching one million new customers by 2021.
Our pathfinders are active at various internal and external events with exciting activities throughout the whole year.
The Baloise Bank SoBa Foundation has been awarding the InnoPrix every year since 1987 for the sustainable promotion of the Solothurn economy. The focus is on innovative projects that offer economic added value for the region and make a contribution to research and development or technology transfer. In addition to the economic aspects, the social relevance of the idea is also decisive.