Supporting community and colleagues during COVID-19

Can pandemics have a silver lining? We think so. ServiceNow employees from all over the world have been coming together the past few months to not only support each other but to serve their local communities due to COVID-19. For Hyderabad-based Radha Govinda Gantayet, he found support in his team during a time of need.

Radha was working in Hyderabad the day he got the call from Bangalore that his pregnant wife was admitted to the hospital and in critical condition. However, due to COVID-19 restrictions, it was difficult to travel the 590km/367 miles to Bangalore. “I tried everything, even obtained police clearance, but after traveling for hundreds of miles I was stopped at the Telangana and Karnataka border and was told by police to go back to Hyderabad,” said Radha. “It was one of the moments I really felt helpless.”

Radha later shared his dilemma with his manager, and he brought in HR and Security to see if anything could be done. And, there could be! With this team’s help, he was able to meet with the commissioner of police and explain his situation. He received an exception clearance letter allowing him to travel to his wife in Bangalore.

“I wouldn’t be here without the help of my team,” he said. “I am eternally grateful for their support and care when I needed it the most during such a chaotic time. This, to me, is what humanity looks like.” Radha and his wife welcomed a healthy baby boy in June.

Not only have ServiceNow employees been helping each other, they have also extended their outreach externally by helping their communities  all over the world.

In the U.K., Carolina Pascual and Hassan Alibhai have responded to the pandemic by making and donating personal protective equipment. Carolina and her daughter are sewing face masks every week and donating them to ServiceNow colleagues, close friends, and members of her church, while Hassan and his son have been making face shields for their local hospital workers.

Ofer Parizer and his peers are sewing masks in Kirkland, Washington. Ofer’s crew was able to sew 2,000 masks for their community’s hospitals in just two weeks. Ofer turned to the ServiceNow community to help gather donations and materials, and the support allowed him to continue making masks to support their local healthcare workers.

In Switzerland, Tolga Tutel and his wife responded to the pandemic by supporting their local retirement home by delivering food to the pensioners. "It's helping them significantly and frees up the caretakers and nurses for other important work,” said Tolga. “And for me and my wife, it’s a chance to go out of the house during lunch time and make some people happy.”

Across the globe in Japan, Eri Okumura is spreading kindness to health care workers. Noticing that a salad restaurant in her office building is donating food to healthcare workers, Eri joined the support by sending origami thank-you notes along with the meals. Eri was also able to get her team to help make notes and colleague, Tamaki Sakamoto’s, daughter was a superstar in helping to create the most origami notes out of everyone to share her appreciation.

In addition to their local efforts, ServiceNow employees raised $250,000 through a corporate matching gifts campaign for non-profits in the employees’ communities that are addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. These donations, in addition to ServiceNow’s global impact corporate grants, totals $1.5 million to organizations including the American Red Cross, International Medical Corps, Feeding America, CDC Foundation and World Health Organization.

Even during this tough time, the ServiceNow community donates their time and resources to help not only their neighborhood communities, but also each other. 

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