Volunteering is definitely hot right now. President Obama has made it part of his national agenda and laid-off workers are flooding nonprofits with applications to volunteer. Many many companies have time off to volunteer as part of their benefits program and vocal companies like Salesforce.com tout their volunteering + donations so much that they even teach other organizations how to follow their model.
But, what's really exciting (and, just in time for National Volunteer Week), is the growing appreciation that giving employees time off to volunteer is not only good for the community, but good for your employees--and good for business.
Talent Management's April cover story Volunteerism’s Impact on Talent Management says it all:
"Organizations should encourage, value and support extracurricular volunteer efforts, not just because it is the right thing to do but because these volunteer activities will increase employee engagement, underscore the employer brand, support recruitment and retention initiatives, and develop valuable workplace skills that ultimately will help the employer succeed."
Now, that sounds like a business case any CFO can appreciate.
Limeade, a wellness company, is taking that one step further and linking volunteer efforts to productivity in their health risk assessment. Instead of just asking employees for their BMIs and cholesterol levels, Limeade asks the employee what he or she wants to achieve--from health to social to career goals--and lets the employee pick up to three. "Giving back" is one of these. Others are things like "get more sleep" and "have more energy."
Henry Albrecht, the CEO of Limeade, says that Giving Back option is there because it is linked to higher productivity. "Giving Back is a goal on the Limeade assessment because altruism predicts better business and personal performance. Including factors like these allows Limeade to predict more than 10 times the variability in productivity than just looking at health factors alone. It's about being a high-performance company--not just flagging health risks and 'singling out the costly.' Our own rigorous statistical analysis shows that 'Concern for Others' predicts both productivity and well-being (both of which are connected to other positive business outcomes like profits and customer satisfaction)."
So, volunteering can increase engagement, develop talent, improve recruiting efforts and even bump up profits and customer satisfaction. Wow. But, how do you get the most bang for your volunteering buck? Two ways:
--Promote your volunteering benefits. (And, promote your donation and gift-matching programs, too--they're all benefits!) This seems like a no-brainer, but plenty of companies give their employees 2 or 3 days a year off to volunteer and then forget to remind their employees to take the time off. Or, worse, their demanding work environment doesn't allow for it. Promote this benefit--and encourage managers to do the same. (If your company doesn't have this benefit, now is a great time to add it!)
--Encourage pro bono work as the most valuable way to volunteer and link those volunteer opportunities to learning and development. Pro bono projects use employees' professional skills. I would never discourage volunteer work like cleaning up parks or building homes for Habitat for Humanity, but pro bono work has so much more potential to engage and develop employees--and pro bono work also delivers the most value to the nonprofit sector, which is desperately in need of the skills your employees have. Most people find donating their unique skills more rewarding than "stuffing envelopes" and other fewer-skills-required jobs. And, pro bono projects and pro bono consulting can often be integrated into employees' day-to-day work rather than having to take everyone off-site for a day or two for a concentrated volunteer project. Need some inspiration? Check out how Umpqua Bank quantifies the impact of all of their associates volunteering (they have nearly 70% participation!).
Not linking time off to volunteer to learning and development is a huge missed opportunity. From the 2008 Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT Survey, a nationwide survey for Fortune 500 HR pros: "Fully 91 percent of respondents agree that skills-based volunteering (which involves the contribution of business knowledge and experience to help nonprofits increase their capacity) would add value to training and development programs, particularly as it relates to fostering business and leadership skills. However, only 16 percent make it a regular practice to intentionally offer these opportunities for employee development, suggesting a missed opportunity to boost learning in a way that offers substantial benefits."
More on that from the Talent Management article: As Peter F. Drucker wrote in the article "Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself," "The real development I've seen of people in organizations, especially in big ones, comes from their being volunteers in a nonprofit organization. I hope we will soon begin to talk about the nonprofit organization as the great social opportunity for business. It is the opportunity for business to develop managers far more effectively than any company or university can. It is one of the unique benefits that the social sector can offer."
Did you hear that? Pro bono work provides opportunities to develop managers far more effectively than any company or university can! (And, hey, it is way cheaper than an MBA.)
Pro bono work also has the ability to elevate everyday professionals to hero status, especially when you're helping organizations that are solving some of society's most challenging problems. That is the theme of a new childrens' book Mommy and Daddy Do It Pro Bono. Written by Aaron Hurst, the founder of The Taproot Foundation, an organization that engages professionals in pro bono work across the country, and his wife, Kara Hurst, a global corporate social responsibility leader, the book shows what typical professionals look like through the eyes of children--and how significant pro bono work can be. It is a fun look at the impact of volunteer work not just on the organizations and individuals involved, but as a way to be a role model in every profession.
It is also the first children's book to feature an HR Manager--perhaps the best roll model in a company for the value of pro bono work (especially since nonprofits need HR help now more than ever). And, it is on sale, just in time for National Volunteer Week, and just in time for you to add a promo about your volunteer time off program to your next benefits update.
Author's note - A big thank you to Liz Guthridge, Charlotte Graeber and Chip Abernathy who provided me with some of the examples above via Twitter.
Editor's Note - Jennifer Benz is founder and chief strategist at Benz Communications, a boutique consulting firm that focuses on employee benefits communication. She admits to not being even slightly impartial on the topic of pro bono work, having been involved with the Taproot Foundation since 2002.
This is an excellent post and almost all of it can be said about sabbatical programs, too. Many companies have sabbatical programs that are tied to volunteer efforts. Patagonia, for example, has a sabbatical program in which participants volunteer for environmental non-profits. Sabbatical programs can be designed to tie in with an organization's values (such as volunteering) and are most effective when also tied to other development initiatives. When someone is away on sabbatical, those left behind are benefiting, too - through the work coverage process, they get to try out new roles and acquire new skills See http://tiny.cc/TfKoL, also in this month's Talent Management.
Posted by: Elizabeth Pagano | April 21, 2009 at 07:56 PM