Why a Corporate Volunteer Culture Creates a Healthier, Happier Workplace

April is National Volunteer Month and this week (April 17-21) is National Volunteer Week, where we celebrate the impact of volunteer service in our communities. Truthfully, no matter how busy you are, you can carve out four hours a month to volunteer somewhere and make a huge difference to somebody or something.

To put it bluntly, volunteering makes people feel good about themselves and the people they help are better off knowing that someone cares. The spirit of volunteerism is invading the workplace as more companies are making conscious efforts to bring it into their corporate culture. They’re discovering that it’s a huge differentiator for employee engagement and turning their businesses into attractive places for recruiting talent.

 Younger workers are insisting that their employers let them have time to volunteer

Many employees see volunteering as a way to further career goals while making an impact. While most employees (of all ages) expect their employers to be socially responsible companies, younger workers further expect their employers to support their own involvement with causes. This includes being allowed to volunteer during company time.

The benefits of employer-supported volunteering are increasingly well-documented. A study by The Carroll School of Management Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, for instance, finds that most companies believe that community involvement overall contributes to key business goals, including improved reputation and the attraction and retention of employees — like Millennials.

As evidenced by findings from their study, companies are now, more than ever, committed to making their community involvement initiatives as strategic as they are impactful. For example, their data reveals that:

• Nearly all (95 percent) of companies surveyed have a community involvement strategy (including giving, volunteering, or both) or are in the process of setting one up. That’s an increase of 13 percent from nearly 84 percent a decade ago. Most companies (95 percent) track participation in employee volunteer programs.
• Most companies surveyed (80 percent) offer a workplace giving program, and more than 70 percent of those that have a program also offer a match when employees give cash. Forty-three percent offer a cash match for volunteer hours.
• More than 80 percent of respondents report that their companies align the social issues addressed in their community involvement efforts with their business priorities
• Ninety-five percent of companies in the current study that measure the relationship between participation in employee volunteer programs and employee engagement scores have found a positive correlation
• The percentage of companies that have a disaster relief program increased from 52 percent to 72 percent in the current study

But it is volunteering that is “the core around which companies are building employee engagement strategies” according to research from America’s Charities. They explore how companies are responding to employee expectations as well as the strategic role of employee volunteering.

How to “voluntarily” raise employee engagement, loyalty and retention

Let’s say you’re in management and want to start a volunteer program and need C-suite or ownership’s approval. Or, you’re a regular employee that wants to bring it up to management. What if I told you that having an employee volunteer program could potentially save you money—say $5,000 to $10,000 per employee? Would you start one?  Or if you have one, would you take it more seriously? 

Research shows us that employee engagement is only 32 percent in 2022 the U.S., which is better than it was a decade ago. But research also shows us that things like volunteer programs enhance a company’s image and if a company does it right, can drive engagement much higher.

The average employee turnover rate of all U.S. industries was around 22 percent in 2018, the highest it’s been in a decade. In some cases, this turnover is healthy for your organization because you’re losing low performers (i.e. problem staff or those not willing to improve) and this can positively impact everything from employee engagement to productivity and profits. But what if the employees leaving your organization are top performers?

Replacing top performers causes service disruptions for your customers and requires a substantial amount of financing, extensive training, employee workload balancing, and handling cultural shifts.

It’s simple math to do good

Do the math. Giving each employee paid time off for volunteer work returns the investment ten times over for the goodwill you’re providing that employee and the people that employee helps. Think about getting departments together to do something like fixing up an elderly person’s home and yard.

Now think about that group of employees all working in matching t-shirts with your company name and logo on them AND someone just happens to let a local news station know about it and your group of employees is shown out in the community laughing, smiling, working and making a community member’s life better. You can’t afford to buy that kind of good publicity. Hey, there’s no law that says you must do good anonymously. It’s not cynical because you’re still doing good.

I use these links to find volunteer opportunities near me, but you can use the same ones to find things in your area, so try VolunteerMatch.org here, National and Community Service at this link, or the United Way volunteer page.

 

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