Employers are increasingly finding employer supported volunteering is delivering real human resource benefits. Many companies believe that employees are a critical audience for their community involvement strategies in general – Springpoint Research found in 2002 that nine in ten managers believe employees are more influenced by CSR than any other audience.
Employer supported volunteering can help not only by reducing employee turnover, recruitment and training costs, but also through increasing employee motivation and productivity – the Corporate Citizenship Company’s 2003 study Good Companies, Better Employees www.corporate-citizenship.co.uk/employees, identified morale, motivation, commitment and performance as amongst the most important outcomes of community involvement, driving benefit straight to the bottom line.
The same study stressed the importance of the integration of strategic HR goals into the design of community involvement programmes, and there is evidence that this is already happening, at least amongst leading companies. Business in the Community’s ECI+ survey of its 700 members in 2000 suggests that employee volunteering is becoming firmly embedded into HR policy:
- 27% of respondents use employee volunteering as a real alternative to staff training
- 18% use it as part of their Investors in People process
- 20% use it support their Equal Opportunity and Diversity objectives
- 24% train their graduates in the community
- 53% have a time off policy
- 69% formally recognise employees’ efforts.
Recruitment
Employers are having to work increasingly hard to find and retain the best people, as the job market gets more competitive, skilled workers get accustomed to regularly moving on and become more selective about their employer. There is clear evidence that people do make the link between companies that are actively involved in the community and those that are good to work for.
Students, in particular, show increasing interest in companies’ social performance when deciding where to start their careers. This may be part of a broader realignment of young people’s priorities, away from giving priority to career and financial considerations, and towards a broader, more holistic perspective that is geared towards job satisfaction and work-life balance.
Research by BT carried out in 2003 found that graduates were much more likely to see work as a means to a stimulating and satisfying life, rather than an end in itself, and that potential employers’ social and community activity was particularly important to this group; other studies, in the UK and the US, have found that graduates are reluctant to work for companies whose values they do not share, or that they perceive as unethical.
Staff morale, performance and retention
Employees take great pride and satisfaction in what they achieve through their volunteer work. The new skills that employees can develop and the new ideas that they can bring back to the workplace has been proven to enhance creativity and performance in their jobs. Many companies find that by supporting employer supported volunteering, they are sending a clear message that the business cares about its employees – Centrica, for example, found that involvement in its Cardiff Cares volunteering scheme increased employees’ job satisfaction (from 62% to 67%), improved retention (nearly 100% amongst participants) and reduced absence due to sickness.
Employer supported volunteering has had a number of positive impacts on Barclays, including increasing employees’ pride in the company and increasing job satisfaction.
MORI has found that satisfied employees are more likely to become ambassadors for their employer, advocating it to potential customers and other employees and to external stakeholders.
Team- and Culture-Building
Employer supported volunteering can bring employees from different teams together, exposing them to different perspectives and helping them get to know people they don’t usually work with. This can help them understand the pressures on other parts of the business as well as build new links within the business. This can be particularly effective in newly-merged organisations, where staff do not know each other and may have limited opportunity to interact in their day-to-day jobs.
Some companies (Centrica, for example) have been able to replace expensive external team-building initiatives with volunteering projects.
Training and development
Employer supported volunteering activities can be matched against training and development needs. Employer supported volunteering can complement existing training and development programmes, with the added dimension of a real-life situation which traditional courses cannot provide. In an unfamiliar situation, employees can be stimulated into creative thinking and problem solving, and encouraged into real learning. They may have to rely more on their own initiative, as well as being exposed to different management styles and new ways of working.
Barclays has seen continued growth in employer supported volunteering, and employees have reported a range of impacts from personal gains such as increased confidence and self esteem, to soft and hard work skills including teamwork, communication, leadership and project management.
Volunteers gain confidence, status, experience, self-esteem and a broader understanding of social issues. Volunteering helps staff to maintain a healthy work-life balance and feel they are giving something back to their local community.
The Corporate Citizenship Company
The Corporate Citizenship Company is at the forefront of research and publications on the link between employer supported volunteering and improved HR performance, and in 2003 completed a major research project on the benefits of volunteering.
Research Phase One
In 1995 The Corporate Citizenship Company researched the evidence of HR business benefits in 7 companies.
It was found that employer supported volunteering yields benefits particularly in communication, team working and influencing skills. Companies also reported morale and motivation benefits.
The results of this research were published in Employees and the Community: how successful companies meet human resource needs through community involvement.
Research Phase Two
In 1998,18 companies joined together to share their experiences of implementing the original report's findings, concentrating on staff competence.
The report, Valuing Employee Community Involvement: A practical guide to measuring the business benefits from employee involvement in the community was published in 1998, and covers:
- an analysis of which types of community involvement develop particular skills for various staff grades;
- practical examples of how to measure competency gain;
- practical examples of how to assess business benefit from competency gain;
- a description of the problems encountered and how they were overcome;
- a listing of the different competencies which can be developed through differing involvement options.
Research Phase Three
In 2001, further research was undertaken into the links between community involvement and the issues of morale, motivation, corporate culture and values.
The results of this phase of research were published in 2003 as Good Companies, Better Employees: How good corporate citizenship can enhance employee morale, motivation, performance and productivity. The final study found that corporate community involvement can play a significant role in addressing the challenges faced by HR managers, enhancing feelings of pride, motivation and likelihood of staying with the company.
For more information go to
www.corporate-citizenship.co.uk/employees
Business in the Community is now offering a service to accredit volunteering, so that the learning and development that results from volunteering can be directly linked back to the workplace. Volunteering Plus provides a structure that captures the learning and development that comes from volunteering, which in turn leads to formal accreditation for volunteers of the work they do.
Volunteering Plus offers both generic awards that can be applied to any volunteering programme, and customised programmes that can be tailored to companies’ own volunteering programmes.
Business in the Community works in partnership with City & Guilds, the national examining body, who issues all Volunteering Plus awards, ensuring national credibility and recognition of the various certificates.
