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Participation playbook: re-engage employees in CSR
- Corporate social responsibility
- Employee giving
- Employee volunteering
- Corporations
- Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives are popular among corporations nationwide. These initiatives help businesses make changes and take part in activities that have a positive impact on the world.
Employee volunteer programs are one of the most popular types of CSR initiatives. In this guide, we’ll explore the basics of these volunteer programs and how your business can start its own. We’ll cover these ideas in the following sections:
Before creating an employee volunteer program, you’ll need a clear understanding of what these programs are. Let’s get started.
Employee volunteer programs are a type of corporate philanthropy in which businesses encourage their employees to engage in volunteer work. Typically, businesses organize these volunteer opportunities around their employees’ interests and use incentive programs and volunteer grants to motivate employees to participate. For example, many companies offer volunteer time off, a paid day off of work where the entire company goes to volunteer together.
Employee volunteer programs are also called workplace volunteer programs, corporate volunteer programs, or company volunteer programs. These programs support a company’s larger corporate social responsibility or community engagement program. Businesses may have specific reasons for building employee volunteering programs such as establishing a positive brand reputation or improving employee engagement.
As the demand for businesses to give back to their communities grows, employee volunteer programs are becoming more important. Employers often have the resources to make a larger impact than individual volunteers because of the number of employees they can deploy to specific causes. Not only are employee volunteer programs great for your community, but they are also in the company’s best interest.
Employee volunteer programs can benefit your company by:
With a robust employee volunteer program, you can make improvements to several different areas of your company at once. When combined with the social benefits you can have on your community, starting a corporate giving program makes a positive impact on your employees, your business, and your customers.
Investing in a new employee volunteer program can feel overwhelming at times. Creating a step-by-step plan that outlines the process succinctly ensures every consideration is taken into account without becoming unwieldy.
For example, you’ll need to identify the right employees to target, make sure the program fits your organization’s needs, set goals, get executive approval, and more. There’s so much that goes into starting an employee volunteer program, all before the program even kicks off.
Use these ten steps to shape your program planning process:
During the process of launching an employee volunteer program, it’s easy to feel lost and overwhelmed. Use these steps to guide the process, and return to them if things start to go off track.
For employee volunteer programs to be successful, you’ll need to encourage your employees to participate. There are several ways your business can increase employee volunteering, such as:
Another way to incentivize your employees to volunteer is to provide volunteer grants. With these programs, your company would give monetary grants to organizations where employees regularly volunteer, maximizing their impact and encouraging participation in your employee volunteer program.
From setting up accessible opportunities to offering your employees paid time off to volunteer, there’s so much you can do to encourage employees to participate in your volunteer programs. No matter the size of your organization, you can make a sizable impact on your community by encouraging the employees on your team to contribute their time to worthy causes.
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