Employee Volunteering Program

According to a recent survey, more than 35% of employees have reported facing challenges while focusing and engaging in work, while 19% stated learning no new skill in the past year. In the same survey, 15% of employees said that they have not been able to connect with new colleagues. These are just a few challenges that employees have been facing due to remote work culture. These challenges often lead to a decrease in productivity, depression and lack of alignment with the company's vision, hence reducing the retention rate of the company.

It is well noted that employee engagement is one of the crucial factors of a company's success. According to a recent survey conducted by the workplace research foundation, the employees who are engaged are 38% more productive than the average productivity. According to Harvard Business Review, Engaged employees are more involved in work and work harder to achieve company goals as compared to disengaged employees who just complete the bare minimum. In conclusion, employee engagement directly impacts work culture, productivity and retention rates.

Out of multiple ways of employee engagement, the most promising one is through an employee volunteering program. Traditionally, volunteering was associated with philanthropy, donations and in-person activities like clean up drives, teaching a classroom, blood donation camps etc. The onset of COVID-19 has brought a drastic shift in volunteering needs and practices across the globe. According to a survey by fast company, more than 75% of millennials were ready to take a pay cut for companies with stronger corporate social practices. Employees are actively looking for opportunities to serve back to the community from the comfort of their home leading to the popularity of virtual volunteering programs.

Virtual volunteering or digital volunteering informally started in 1970 with the Gutenberg project. It formally began in the 1990s with Impact Online and a United Nations initiative called NetAid. In India, virtual volunteering started with the United Nations, CRY, MAD in the early 2010s and gained momentum with the onset of COVID -19. During this time, employees were looking for opportunities to give back to their communities but without the fear of transmission. Virtual volunteering has transformed the volunteering sector and it is here to stay as it offers multiple benefits to volunteers and organizations.

● More Choices: In a traditional set-up, volunteers faced difficulties finding organisations with their interest and alignment. Even if they could, there was a conflict with the work schedule. Virtual Volunteering provides them with the opportunity to select from different organisations which work on the cause they want to contribute to.
● Flexibility in time and resources: Compared to the traditional way of volunteering in which one had to step out of their comfort and spend time travelling, virtual volunteering reduces travel time and gives you more flexibility in time and resources.
● Improving virtual employee engagement: As noted above, work from home culture is leading to burnout, lack of engagement in employees. Virtual volunteering is one way of improving work cultures, employee engagement and fostering healthy relationships in the organisation.
● Easier tracking and follow up: Virtual volunteering makes it easier for the human resource to track the progress and time put in the activities. It will be helpful in documenting the resources utilised and the impact created by the organisation

Undoubtedly, virtual volunteering is gaining popularity due to above mentioned reasons but there is more to it. If organisations take a structured volunteering program then the organisation and its employees can have multiple benefits.

For employees the volunteering opportunities will help in:
- Increased work satisfaction : Employees feel a sense of satisfaction after volunteering and it increases their job satisfaction which leads to higher productivity.
- Healthier mental health: A recent study found out that more than 75% of the respondents reported improvement in their mental health after volunteering , which leads to happier employees and better outcomes.
- Better Career Opportunities: Volunteering helps us in advancing our careers, with major universities looking for our contribution back to the community as an important factor before admission , volunteering is one way of achieving that.
- Learn New Skills: Volunteering teaches us leadership skills like public speaking, social awareness, coordination, creativity and marketing skills.

For organizations stronger corporate social responsibility practices will give them leverage at multiple occasions, few of them are:
- Increase Employee Retention: According to a study conducted by Great Place To Work, workers mentioned that volunteering opportunities are one of the major deciding factors before they switch. Hence better volunteering programs leads to better retention.
- Attracting talented individuals : In a recent study conducted by cone communication, more than 60% of millennials were willing to take a pay cut to join a company with stronger social corporate responsibility practices.
- Employee Engagement: According to a survey, 85% of employees reported that the workplace is not engaging. Virtual volunteering is an effective way to increase employee engagement.
- Interaction with audience : Volunteering activities is an opportunity for employees to interact with the audience and to understand their likes and dislikes which will act as a primary research in understanding consumer behaviour while giving back to society.
- Better Brand Value: 75% of the employees agree that better social corporate practices leads to a better company image and Warren Buffet, Ratan Tata, Bill Gates and Azim Premji are great examples for leaders who leveraged on their ISR to build their businesses reputation.

In a nutshell, virtual volunteering programs are a way to build healthier social corporate responsibilities that will lead to long term benefits for organisations as well as employees to build a better brand and skills, leading to long term benefits.

Interested in designing a structured virtual volunteering programme for your company? Here’s a toolkit that might help.
If you are exploring corporate employee volunteering programs then, write to us at shilpi@csrbox.org .

Swapnil Goel

Swapnil is a Teach For India and Indian School of Development Management alumni with more than 3years of experience in the social sector. She completed her education in Business Management and Development Leadership. As a development professional, she has a bias for action with an interest in designing and implementing interventions. She sees skill-building and education as one of the means to alleviate poverty. She is currently working as Manager New Initiatives at CSRBOX. Before this, she worked as Teach For India Fellow and Project Associate at Leadership for Equity. In her leisure time, she likes to read and do yoga.