Our social responsibility

Our people

Attracting the best talent, empowering people to innovate and reinforcing our culture remain key to driving performance and maintaining a highly motivated workforce.

Our People and Culture team use three key pillars to drive our success:

These key pillars allow us to drive operational excellence within all our people interactions, keep us true to our seven core values and help us focus on what truly matters to us: our people.

Our seven core values

Social matters

SoftwareOne Gives Back

In 2024, the SoftwareOne Gives Back programme focused on incentivising our employees to get involved in giving and volunteering activities to support our communities. During this period, we:

SoftwareOne Gives Back reinforces our commitment to society and our workforce. We launched the programme in October 2023, and since then we have put strategies in place to increase our positive impact and keep our employees engaged.

Supporting direct positive digital transformation of NPOs and local communities

SoftwareOne Impact harnesses the transformative power of technology to improve lives and protect the planet. This belief drives our work with nonprofits worldwide, empowering them to achieve their missions and make a lasting difference. Technology plays a critical role in helping them grow and achieve their goals. By providing a wide range of services, solutions, and partnerships, SoftwareOne Impact supports nonprofits in creating positive change and strengthening the communities they serve.

In 2024 we were named AWS Global Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) Consulting Partner of the Year. This award reflects our commitment to empowering nonprofits through transformation and cloud innovation.

To meet growing demand, SoftwareOne Impact expanded our global nonprofit team to support customers from over 25 SoftwareOne countries. This growth has strengthened our ability to offer tailored support, helping nonprofits to master the unique challenges of digital transformation. Our operations team also grew, equipping us to deliver faster, more effective solutions to those who need them most.

In 2024, we continued to develop our service portfolio to help nonprofit customers understand and develop Data and AI strategies, launch ready-to-use infrastructure and rapidly deploy scalable and secure AI services, developing and authoring applications to help nonprofit organisations utilise AI and Generative AI tailored to their own specific needs and innovative use cases.

With Microsoft 365 Copilot’s launch, we created services to help nonprofits maximise their potential. Our Copilot Envision, Enablement, and Adoption services provide nonprofits with guidance to implement and use the platform effectively. Additionally, we expanded our Rapid Adoption Toolkit with Security and Governance tools, helping nonprofits protect sensitive data and ensure compliance while optimising productivity.

To tackle the challenges of procurement, we launched Strategic Sourcing for Nonprofits. This service simplifies the process of identifying, negotiating, and purchasing software, reducing complexity and saving organisations time and money.

Near the end of 2024, we were awarded supplier agreements under the OCRE 2024 framework for AWS, Google, and Microsoft across 34 European countries. This framework has traditionally supported education research networks, but its latest iteration includes research-focused nonprofits. With over 15,000 eligible organisations, OCRE 2024 provides easy access to pre-negotiated cloud discounts and SoftwareOne’s tailored services for the education, government and nonprofit research communities.

SoftwareOne attended and sponsored the NetHope Global Summit in Washington, DC. The summit brought together nonprofit and technology leaders to share knowledge, collaborate, and explore how technology can create positive change.

SoftwareOne has deepened our partnership with Tech to the Rescue, an organisation connecting nonprofits with tech support. As a founding member and sponsor of its AI for Changemakers Programme, we have supported nonprofits using AI to tackle global challenges. This commitment earned us the Tech for Good award, underlining our dedication to helping nonprofits amplify their impact.

Third-party due diligence

Our ESG programme is about more than just our own actions. At SoftwareOne we are committed to ensuring responsible supply chain management by embedding ESG principles into our procurement processes, supplier selection and ongoing monitoring. Our third-party due diligence framework, risk-based supplier screening and supplier development initiatives are designed to mitigate risks and uphold high ethical standards across our value chain.

Our process

In 2024, we continued to enhance our third-party due diligence process with IntegrityNext. Through this platform, our suppliers are asked to complete a questionnaire that covers a range of topics such as environmental protection, energy management, data protection, anti-corruption, modern slavery, human rights, child labour, conflict minerals, health & safety, conflicts of interest, diversity & inclusion, quality management and carbon footprint.

Suppliers are divided into categories depending on their sales volume and risk profile, and undergo an assessment that allows us to identify those posing the highest ESG risks. The questionnaire provides a comprehensive assessment of the supplier’s practices, policies, and controls, enabling a consistent and objective evaluation of supplier risk. In addition to the questionnaire, we perform supplier screening based on ESG criteria, as well as country-specific and sector-specific risks. Suppliers that are identified as high-risk are subjected to enhanced due diligence. By using this process, SoftwareOne can effectively manage supplier risks, mitigate potential vulnerabilities, and ensure compliance with applicable regulations and industry standards.

To strengthen oversight, our Executive Board is responsible for the governance of supplier ESG implementation, with regular reporting to the Board of Directors.

Supplier risk management and actions

Through our enhanced supplier ESG assessment process, we identify areas of improvement among suppliers. We engage with suppliers when gaps in ESG performance are identified, to encourage alignment with our expectations. As we continue developing our programme, we assess mechanisms to support suppliers in enhancing their ESG practices, including structured follow-up actions, audits or site visits where necessary.

In 2024, we expanded our coverage of suppliers to continue onboarding our Category A, B and C suppliers, including both new and existing. Since we launched this process in 2023, we have monitored 8,550 suppliers, and 2,395 have been assessed for ESG-related topics. Of these, 1,960 were assessed on environmental impacts and 1,921 on social impacts.

To further improve supplier accountability, we are strengthening the integration of ESG criteria into supplier selection and contract awarding processes. While our approach continues to evolve, we emphasise ESG considerations in procurement discussions and seek to engage with suppliers demonstrating strong ESG performance.

As part of our commitment to responsible supply chain management, we are continuously refining our approach to supplier oversight and ESG assessment. Our Compliance Audit function, in coordination with other relevant functions, is working to further develop our process to assess third-party ESG performance and compliance with our standards.

Compliance with local supply chain regulations

SoftwareOne operates in multiple jurisdictions, each with its own regulatory requirements governing responsible supply chain management. We are committed to ensuring compliance with all applicable local regulations, as well as evolving requirements in other key markets. Our approach focuses on risk-based supplier due diligence, transparency, and continuous improvements to meet regulatory expectations.

German Supply Chain Act

Since the introduction of the German Supply Chain Act, we have prioritised the identification, assessment and engagement of suppliers operating in this market. Germany, together with the US, Switzerland and the Netherlands represents a significant portion of our operations, accounting for approximately 49% of our total revenue, with Germany alone contributing 20%.

As part of our compliance efforts in Germany, we have uploaded 5,345 suppliers engaged with our German entity into the IntegrityNext portal and have conducted country and sector specific risk assessments for these suppliers. We identified 199 suppliers including their ESG performance, from which 163 A and B suppliers were invited to participate in our due diligence assessment.

Supplier engagement & awareness

Recognising the importance of supplier awareness in responsible business practices, we have taken steps to enhance supplier understanding of ESG expectations and regulatory obligations across different jurisdictions. As part of our ongoing efforts, we are evaluating digital learning solutions to further support supplier engagement. In this context, we are considering the integration of ESG-related training resources through the dedicated platform to provide accessible learning opportunities.

Integrity Line and grievance mechanisms

To promote transparency and accountability, SoftwareOne’s Integrity Line is accessible to all stakeholders across our supply chain. This independent and confidential channel enables reporting concerns related to human rights, environmental risks or ethical business conduct. In addition, we have introduced the first publicly accessible telephone hotline to further facilitate reporting.

Code of Conduct for business partners

The SoftwareOne Code of Conduct for Partners sets clear requirements for all suppliers and business partners. It establishes expectations for labour conditions, fair treatment of employees and prevention of discrimination and harassment.

The Code reinforces human rights protections by strictly prohibiting child and forced labour. It also outlines environmental sustainability commitments, promotes responsible resource use and emissions management, fair competition and ethical business conduct. To support accountability and compliance, the Code includes grievance mechanisms that allow stakeholders to confidentially report concerns related to violations, ensuring that issues are addressed appropriately and in line with our responsible business practices.

Supplier diversity at SoftwareOne

SoftwareOne is committed to enhancing supplier diversity by fostering opportunities for minority-owned and underrepresented suppliers. We actively support initiatives that promote diverse supplier engagement, ensuring that our procurement process remains inclusive and aligned with responsible sourcing principles. By strengthening supplier diversity, we create opportunities within our supply chain and support customers advance in their diversity and inclusion efforts.

Supplier diversity in the IT software and services sector presents unique challenges. Procurement is often concentrated among a few global technology vendors, limiting direct spending with diverse suppliers. Additionally, customer investment decisions are primarily driven by technical and commercial priorities, making it hard to prioritise supplier diversity.

To address this, SoftwareOne collaborates with customers to enhance visibility into supplier diversity. In the US, we partner with Supplier.io to improve diversity reporting and help customers meet disclosure obligations. This enables businesses to track, analyse, and report on supplier diversity, improving procurement transparency.

SoftwareOne remains committed to continuously strengthening our approach to third-party management by integrating ESG principles into supplier assessments, risk mitigation, and procurement decisions. Through our enhanced due diligence framework, supplier risk management processes, and ongoing engagement initiatives, we foster greater transparency, accountability, and sustainability within our supply chain. As we navigate the evolving regulatory landscape, we continue to refine our compliance measures, ensuring alignment with local and international supply chain regulations while supporting our suppliers and customers in meeting their ESG commitments.

Employee matters

Our workforce profile

In 2024, SoftwareOne grew to around 9,475 employees across 5 regions. This number is derived from permanent employees and is shown as individual headcount, therefore includes part time workers. Roughly 20% of our workforce are in managerial positions.

We pride ourselves on our diversity, representing people of 60+ nationalities and 30+ languages. The gender distribution is 64% men, 35% women and 1% not declared, and the average age of our employees is 38.

Employees breakdown by region, by tenure and by gender
based on 2024 employees

We will continue to explore ways to gather demographic data, where permitted, to help us measure success and ensure that our programmes and initiatives are meeting our employees’ needs both globally and on an individual country basis.

DEIB strategy

This year, SoftwareOne expanded our global DEIB strategy, launched in 2023, to provide further detail and guidance to Swomies on our initiatives and how they can get involved. The DEIB activities and initiatives that make up the DEIB strategy are driven by one or more of our five pillars of diversity, as well as their intersectionality. There is freedom and flexibility within the framework of the DEIB strategy to support global, regional and county-specific initiatives focused on one or more of the pillars.

Below are some specific initiatives within the expanded strategy:

• Global DEIB policies: Our expanding suite of DEIB-related policies includes our Global Anti-harassment and Anti-discrimination Policy. We will continue to work with P&C teams in each country to ensure that our people policies reflect SoftwareOne’s values, purpose and local considerations.

• DEIB recruitment: Given that our people are our greatest asset, recruiting the best talent from the largest pool is crucial to SoftwareOne’s success. Our Academy and Talent Acquisition teams continue to deliver the best talent to our teams around the world.

• DEIB activities and engagement: We aim to provide ways for all Swomies to get involved in activities and events, on a global, regional and country level. Mosaic’s Women in Tech group is a great example of an initiative that covers multiple countries and regions, and a key element of our DEIB Strategy is to support its geographic expansion. Our clients are increasingly prioritising DEIB, meaning that the ability to demonstrate our commitment and credentials as an organisation in tender requests is a priority. This opens up the opportunity to have conversations with our clients on how we can support or partner with them on their existing DEIB initiatives and goals.

• Systems, processes and internal initiatives: to ensure that we retain and promote the best talent, SoftwareOne continues to work with the P&C teams around the world to promote fair and bias-free systems and processes. This includes ongoing policy reviews, as well as monitoring our promotion, performance and remuneration processes. Working with the L&D team, we are beginning to build DEIB content into the SoftwareOne University workshops, online learning and webinars, to help all Swomies maximise their professional development.

Mosaic: our employee resource groups

Mosaic is the umbrella term for SoftwareOne’s regional Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which are dedicated to representing our workforce and the diverse communities and identities within SoftwareOne, in line with our DEIB pillars and organisational goals.

Mosaic was born in 2020 within NORAM and LATAM, and in 2023 it expanded to EMEA and APAC. Our regional Women in Tech Mosaic groups have been particularly active; a focus of our expanded DEIB strategy is highlighting Women in Tech as our flagship group, and encouraging all our people, regardless of gender or background, to get involved with the network as members or supporters.

Below are a few of the activities organised by our Women in Tech groups over the past year:

• Women in Tech UK: 2024 activities included talks on “Parenting Tips & Tricks” and a “Demystifying Menopause” webinar and Q&A session. The group also held a Women in Tech UK networking members’ day and participated in the Silicone Roundabout Women in Tech community event. One of the group’s leaders, Jessica Anthony Malintas, was nominated for the prestigious “Woman of the Year – Tech” award at the Women in Tech Excellence Awards – she was shortlisted out of 18,000 nominees.
• Women in Tech Denmark: Our Women in Tech Group in Denmark organised and hosted a networking and business development event entitled “Empowering Women in Technology”. The event in Copenhagen featured a variety of speakers from across the tech industry, including a panel of women industry leaders, chaired by our Global Manager of Group Communications, Janine Hensen. Over 50 women attended, including leaders, decision-makers, and up-and-coming talents and influencers.
• Women in Tech France: Elles@Tech France was established in October 2024, and is dedicated to empowering women in the tech industry. The group has grown to 56 members and organises monthly events attracting 30–40 participants, with 30% being male allies. Elles@Tech France is focused on developing joint events with partners such as Microsoft and Google.

Pride at SoftwareOne

At SoftwareOne, we strongly believe in cultivating a culture that celebrates and embraces the unique qualities of every employee. We prioritise creating an environment where everyone feels not just accepted but truly valued for their differences. In 2024, we hosted our annual Pride campaign both on a global and local level. Initiatives focus on creating awareness, promoting constructive conversations and giving back to ensure everyone at SoftwareOne feels safe, comfortable, and accepted when at work.

SoftwareOne selected a variety of charities in different countries and matched all Swomie donations as part of the “Celebrate Pride Month 2024!” campaign. The Learning and Development team created the “Pride Learning and Development” suite of courses, which provided tools and tips on adopting an inclusive mindset at work and about LGBTQ+ protection against discrimination. Swomies who participated received a “Pride Learning Champions” badge.

Talent acquisition

The Talent acquisition (TA) team continually strives to enhance and improve attraction strategies and hiring processes to ensure fairness and inclusivity for all communities. Some of the actions taken during 2024 include:

• Implementation of Textio: This is an AI-powered writing assistant that analyses language used in job advertisements and suggests changes to improve clarity, diversity, and inclusion. It also helps express our company culture through words and avoids using gender-biased language in job postings and email communications.
• Inclusive interview panels: We strive to ensure that every job hiring process has an inclusive interview panel to guarantee a balanced view and eliminate bias.
• Assessment tools: All our hiring processes involve market leading assessments such as Pymetrics and Criteria to ensure the assessment process is non-discriminatory and that any subgroup differences are minimised.
• Hiring manager interview training: Our vision is that every person who interviews within SoftwareOne has gone through our Global Interview Training programme; so far 650 hiring leaders have been trained. This training programme has been crafted to create a global interview standard that will enhance interviewers’ skills, enabling us to assess candidates more effectively, reduce bias and avoid hiring mistakes.
• Diversity playbook for TA: Every member of the TA team now has a manual to use when recruiting candidates with a disability. This playbook provides guidance on reasonable accommodations offered, appropriate interaction with candidates, and how to engage with hiring managers around disabilities.
• Accommodations email: We created a reasonable accommodations email address for candidates to use should they need any assistance throughout the interview and hiring process. The email address is advertised on every job posting.

The number of female applicants has grown significantly over the past three years, with 22.5% growth in 2024. This demonstrates a 3.4x increase in female participation from 2022 to 2024, highlighting a positive shift in diversity and inclusion efforts.

The increase in female applications has translated into a significant rise in offers extended to female candidates, with a significant growth of 62.7% from last year and a 1.8x increase overall in offers extended from 2022 to 2024, indicating successful conversions of female applications through the hiring funnel. We are seeing a higher percentage of females move from the final interview to the offer stage compared to males, as well as a higher offer acceptance rate among female candidates.

Recognising the need for greater gender inclusivity, we updated our strategy to include “Agender/I do not identify with any gender” as an option. As a result, the Opt-Out rate has decreased in 2024, demonstrating the effectiveness of this initiative in fostering a more inclusive application process.

Talent acquisition statistics 2024

Our talent acquisition teams in different global regions have been working towards our goal of attracting a more diverse pool of candidates. Below are some of the regional initiatives set in montion in 2024 to help achieve this goal.

SoftwareOne Academy: strengthening our future talent pipeline

The Academy’s mission is to source, recruit, train, support and aid the transition of young and career-changing individuals from local communities worldwide into SoftwareOne, starting at grassroots level. Now in its fourth year, the SoftwareOne Academy exists in over 30 countries and delivers over 50 courses across Sales, Services, IT and Solutions (ITS) and Marketplace Delivery. The SoftwareOne Academy has equipped and helped 180-plus cohorts in more than 30 countries to discover a life-changing career in IT, with 764 Academy hires to date either currently in the programme or transitioned to full-time employees at SoftwareOne. This represens an 87% transition rate into the business. Globally, we had 43% female hiring through the Academy. This has resulted in a significant number of highly skilled and impactful individuals joining our workforce.

In 2024, the SoftwareOne Academy helped 41 learners return to work in their placements with us through our SOAR returnship programme. SoftwareOne is committed to fostering a more diverse and inclusive workplace, aiming for a 12% increase in female representation at all levels. The SOAR programme, with 63% female candidates, is a key driver of this goal, aligning with the organisation’s broader ESG objectives.

In addition, SoftwareOne is committed to bringing in 20% of all new hires through the Academy. We managed to surpass that goal in November 2024, reaching 22%.

In 2024, the Academy won Best Place to Learn for the Academy Apprenticeship Programme in Germany. It was also recognised by the EU Pact for Skills, singled out for a Member Spotlight by the European Alliance for Apprenticeships (EAfA) and is a top 100 partner of AWS Educate and Microsoft Philanthropies.

SoftwareOne Germany was Erasmus+ certified in June 2024. In APAC, SoftwareOne Academy participated in AWS’s Women Empowering Women Mentorship Programme, where 7 women mentors from SoftwareOne led virtual monthly roundtable sessions with female students from educational institutions across India, guiding on emerging technologies.

The Academy Alumni Group, Amplify, is composed of 764 alumni, with the objective of networking and promoting collaboration. The group organised a series of Expert Talks to gain cutting-edge insights from leading industry experts and connect with the Alumni network.

We also introduced the Academy + programme, which provides support to leaders to cross-skill or reskill their existing team members. The content and knowledge shared during the programme are focused on technical skills and functional responsibilities. In 2024, 346 participants from Colombia went through the programme.

SoftwareOne collaborates with leading organisations like AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft, and ServiceNow to create more opportunities for our learners. Our goal in forging these partnerships is to position SoftwareOne as an employer of choice, enhance the Academy’s brand, and develop a robust pipeline of future talent. Through the Academy, SoftwareOne positively impacts local communities on a global scale with a local approach, increasing the employability and career opportunities of people close to our operations.

Learning & Development

During 2024, the average training hours per employee were 16.58. The graphic below disaggregates this information by gender and employee category from 2022 to 2024. Average training hours have increased significantly over the last two years. The biggest increase continues to be with managers, from 12 hours in 2023 to 24 in 2024. This data helps us measure the effectiveness of our L&D strategy and initiatives.

Training hours for 2022 – 2024

Some of the measures taken in 2024 to contribute to this positive trend include:

• Our digital learning portal: In 2024, we enhanced our digital learning portal with the addition of various content libraries from external partners like Skillsoft and Big Think Plus. This has allowed us to design and develop extensive self-paced learning resources, both as an add-on to our instructor-led workshops and as standalone learning journeys. We also introduced a cultural intelligence platform, Country Navigator, to promote cultural understanding across the organisation, supporting our cross-functional collaboration efforts. A final addition to our digital learning resources in 2024 was the language learning platform Learnlight, which has provided both self-paced and virtual instructor-led workshops to over 2,500 learners across SoftwareOne. We continue to see a great uptake of our main digital learning portal by 5,000 monthly users: over 50% of our employee population participated in a total of around 150,000 hours of learning.
• In-person and hybrid learning space: SoftwareOne expanded our offerings in the in-person and hybrid delivery space with several professional development topics. This benefitted more than 2,500 participants in 100 workshops globally. We aim to scale this offering and increase participation in 2025 with the help of an external facilitation partner, NIIT. A podcast was established under our professional development pillar in late 2024 to allow Swomies to learn from the stories and experiences of their colleagues.
• Leadership framework: Under our leadership development pillar, we created a well-defined leadership framework to address the four levels of leadership at SoftwareOne, from Emerging Leaders to Executives. Robust instructor-led solutions were created for the first two levels of this framework, Emerging Leaders and Team Leaders. These learning journeys were delivered to 702 participants across all four regions. In addition, we developed a specific coaching programme, which was delivered to 100 leaders globally. In Q4, we designed an additional learning journey for our senior leaders called Business Leader Journey, to be rolled out in early 2025.

Along with all these efforts, the L&D team at SoftwareOne was engaged in supporting specific local needs and developing tailored solutions for regional-based teams and business functions. We also worked closely with the M&A team to support the appropriate integration of newly acquired businesses like Medalsoft in China and Novis Euforia in Spain.

Remuneration policy

SoftwareOne’s general guiding principles on remuneration are rooted in our philosophy and objectives and apply to all compensation and benefit programmes offered within SoftwareOne. The guiding principles aim to ensure alignment with SoftwareOne’s business strategy, motivate our people, and remain competitive within the markets in which we compete for talent. Reward programmes are compared with our competitive peer company groups. SoftwareOne uses different comparator groups for the various businesses and markets in which we are active.

Tracking employee satisfaction

SoftwareOne is immensely proud of its track record of positive response and high employee engagement. In 2024, we are delighted to have been awarded the HR Excellence Award Success for SoftwareOne Philippines in the Engagement category and have been named a Top Company for Employee Experience in Brazil.

We are investing in new tools to enhance our employee engagement and employee listening, and plan on running our next global Employee Engagement Survey in 2025. Ahead of implementing a consolidated platform to support the global engagement initiatives, we continue to work closely with our local P&C teams to ensure that employees have a voice.

Developing our employees

In line with our commitment to fostering a culture of continuous improvement and employee development where we can support the professional growth and success of our employees, SoftwareOne provides our employees with a robust performance review framework designed to aid them and their managers in regular performance and career development reviews. During 2024, 90% of employees within the organisation entered performance goals on the system, and 86% completed the performance management process through goal setting, review and completion. Goals are used to help leaders determine development needs for their team members, rate personal performance and identify high-potential individuals.

Breakdown and completion rates on Performance Management

In 2025, SoftwareOne will migrate performance management to our global HRIS (Workday), which will provide even greater support to our leaders in managing their people. We have also implemented a global job architecture, which will allow us to build career pathways linked to skills and job roles.

Rewarding strong performance

SoftwareOne believes that strong performance deserves recognition and reward. We have a comprehensive employee rewards and recognition philosophy which focuses on target achievement by individuals, teams, and the region they belong to, driven by our company strategy. Bonuses are awarded to every employee at SoftwareOne, driving home the message that success comes from collaboration and teamwork.

To support a high-performance culture, the President’s Club celebrates the contribution of our top performers with four days of culture, relaxation, food, fun and partying in some of the most iconic locations in the world. In 2024, we celebrated in Thailand. See more information about this programme in our Spotlight story below.

Health & Safety

SoftwareOne currently manages Health & Safety for our employees at a local level. This allows us to tailor programmes and initiatives to meet the needs of our employees at their local workplaces and ensures that we can provide targeted support in the moment of need. These support roles are carried out by P&C Business Partners alongside dedicated and motivated individuals who go above and beyond to support and mentor their colleagues, promoting good mental health and well-being. This includes Employee Assistance Programmes, where employees can reach out to professionals for support.

In 2024, SoftwareOne updated the Global Mobility Policy to augment our flexible working practices by adding options for employees to apply to work temporarily from a different location or country. This policy supports our commitment to a healthy work-life balance.

1% of permanent employees were recorded as being on sick leave during the course of 2024. Of that 1%, 52% reported absence up to 14 days, with 23% reported as absent over 120 days. Sick leave is defined differently in different regions, and not all countries are reporting sick leave in the system. During 2025, the project to implement single system for reporting absence will be completed. These numbers represent those reported absences which are captured in the system.

Absence report 20245) As of 31 December 2024: Total headcount 9,475