Will Company-Wide Volunteering Work for You

Will Company-Wide Volunteering Work for YouWill Company-Wide Volunteering Work for YouAs a recruiter youre always looking for strategies that will help you improve your employees working experience without adding to your bottom line. And when it comes to recruiting and building loyalty, unusual benefits like paid volunteering are increasingly popular, especially among the coveted Gen Y demographic.So when Deloitte surveyed hundreds of corporate managers at companies with thousands of employees and found that 64 percent of them feel confident that corporate citizenship produces a tangible contribution to the company bottom line, it became fair to wonder what the impact of a giving program would be for your company.Whether youre interested in offering volunteer time-off programs or company-wide volunteer days, your questions remain the same Do these programs impact morale? Are they landseen as a perk by employees? Are there any tangible business benefits?Heres a look at three important things to understand about company giving trends and whether they can help you figure out if theyre right for your company.1. Company Giving Helps Attract and Identify Promising New Recruits There are two distinguishing characteristics that make the practice of company giving especially valuable to companies looking to recruit younger employees.PriceWaterhouseCoopers found that 88 percent of Millennials gravitate towards companies with established volunteering programs or corporate social responsibility programs.Offering a company giving program, whether that means volunteer time off or company-wide volunteering events, indicates to prospective hires that youre interested in their personal growth and who they are outside of their job description. With an established company giving program, youll not only attract more Millennials, but youll also have a better chance of keeping them.Company giving can also help you identify top performers in terms of attitude in the workplace and wil lingness to give of their time. Both individual volunteers and company-wide volunteering can help you better understand what drives a candidate or employee and identify performance markers for more strategic and long-lasting promotions.2. Company Giving Gives an Added Edge to Diverse EnvironmentsWith the ever-increasing emphasis on diversity in the workplace, youre working hard to create a team of individual members with different backgrounds, perspectives and experience. But while diversity helps you remain competitive in your industry, it can also lead to a more isolated or hesitant workspace simply because the only thing they have in common is an employer.Company-wide volunteering provides an opportunity for your employees to come together and achieve a common goal that isnt related to job functions or history. Youre providing a no-pressure zone for building common ground and learning to work as a team. When you sponsor company-wide volunteering days youre creating a new, shared history for your diverse employees. Employees come together outside of the usual business hierarchy and see that they can build something in common.3. Company Giving Wont Heal a Hurting EnvironmentJust one word of warning with all of the positive growth associated with company giving, dont think that company giving is a panacea for an increasingly toxic workplace.If you have serious problems to work through, such as high turnover or low morale, company giving programs will only worsen those feelings of resentment and discontinuity between what your employees really need and what you are willing to give them. Youre better off investing resources to improve communication and morale within the workplace than offering elective volunteer opportunities.If youre considering whether or not to include company giving as part of your companys paid benefits, theres no one right answer. If youre looking to help a good team get better or create common roots among a new team, then company giving w ill definitely reap productivity rewards. But it certainly wont solve any ongoing problems in the workplace. At the end of the day, the answer is much the same as applying any other new ideas for your work environment its up to each HR professional to decide whether or not its a good fit.Read Related ArticlesMake Candidates an Offer They Cant Refuse