Volunteering over the years has become quite a trend for businesses, with 60% of millennials choosing (and staying with) their current employer because they’re offered these opportunities and feel a sense of purpose there.Although it may make up a small aspect of HR, getting your team members to invest time into helping others can be hugely beneficial to employee engagement.
If your company doesn’t yet offer volunteering and charity opportunities, it may be time to rethink…
Creating an Environment Conducive to Employee Engagement
Volunteering, as a means of employee engagement, is essential to strengthening employee relationships, morale and productivity. As humans, it gives us pleasure in being able to help and give back to others and so, in turn, it creates a much more positive employee experience.
Productivity
Productivity increases when employees are working together to reach a common goal. It makes employees realise that each person has a different role to play and has their own strengths. As a result, employees should feel more valued and fulfil a sense of purpose.
If team members are engaged in their volunteering or charitable activity, this will translate into the workplace. Therefore, workplace volunteering is an effective way to create a positive team environment thus increasing efficiency.
Company Culture
By making volunteering an aspect of company culture, it provides all employees an equal opportunity to get involved. If Managers, Directors and CEO’s get involved, for example, it permits for integration amongst the rest of the company, allowing individuals to get to know each other better. As a result, it creates an inclusive working environment.
Incorporating volunteering into company culture also looks great for potential clients and employees to see that, as an organisation, you actively look to make a positive contribution towards your local and wider community. This may seem like a small deciding factor on who customers decide to do business with, but as a whole, customers in today’s society are becoming much more conscious.
Summary
Consequently, businesses that invest time into volunteering are more likely to attract talent. Contributing towards the community and raising funds for charity becomes a workplace incentive and poses an attractive benefit to employees and clients alike.
Annapurna Giving
Here at Annapurna, committing time to volunteer and raising money for charity is extremely important to us. We have a number of charities we raise funds for throughout the year including several employees running the London Marathon, Soup Kitchen, and Cure Parkinson’s Trust.; which is an organisation we work particularly close with.
You can keep up with all our charity and volunteering work here.
