Life & Technology

Every Employee Volunteering Program deserves an appreciation of its people and teams. 

Also, a showcase of the positive outcome for beneficiaries.

Celebrate People. Celebrate Impact.

These tips will reward you greatly both in the short and long term. 

Reward Those Who Give Freely

Celebrate Top Performers among the Volunteers, 3-5 (in a medium org) or 7-10 (large org) employees. A top volunteer may not be excellent at work (core function). There may be many good volunteers, but some will stand out. Create a criterion before you strategize for the Employee Volunteering Program. Partner with Internal Communication, call out top performers during a Town Hall or with an email to all employees, and display their photos on your digital screens. 

Celebrate Leader Involvement

Do not forget to appreciate the role of the manager. Not all managers may be proactively encouraging their employees. It is important to thank those who do publicly. For those who do not, try to pursue a conversation offline. Line Managers need to be made aware and encouraged to acknowledge the specific strengths of their team members. An email to managers makes a big difference whether you meet offline or not.

An appreciative personal email from the CEO or a key leader will go a long way. An appreciative personal email from the CEO or a key leader will go a long way. Most employees look up to their leaders. Any encouragement is a big emotional incentive to do more for the company. Reach out to key leaders to appreciate the volunteer in a joint forum of volunteers or through an encouraging email.

Similarly, in the case of the individual volunteer, appreciate volunteer teams too. Highlight strengths that enabled them to be impactful.

Do Not Forget The Nonprofit

Include your trusted nonprofit partner in your celebrations. Slot them into a Town Hall or host an exclusive session with volunteers and supportive leaders. Get the beneficiaries to showcase the outcome. It’s always credible when beneficiaries endorse the work done by Employee Volunteers.

Get Social - Create Employee Advocates

Rally your Volunteer team to spread the word on Social. Create posts for them whenever necessary. Highlight the opportunities the organization provided to its employees and the work done by the nonprofit partner. Videos or quotes by employees, if shared on personal networks, bring greater visibility and appreciation for employees, organizations, and nonprofits.

Report Facts, Tell Stories, Use Data

Most companies record output but often fail to showcase the outcomes externally or internally. Reporting is necessary, and so is celebrating Impact at all levels. It keeps the spirit alive for your campaigns to keep it going. Most Volunteers forget about results, and fewer ask. Even for one-time events involving planting saplings, matching programs that donate to NGOs (employee hours) require sharing with all employees. Necessary when a significant amount collected produces a tangible change.

Word of Mouth is still the best medium to communicate. Social Media (Communication), or digital word of mouth, has taken it to a new level.

When we showcase change using internal channels, it develops a sense of pride in employees. It inspires some previous non-doers to contribute and be part of the change.

Showcasing Impact affects employees, leaders, nonprofit partners, customers, and other organizations in the community. Stories require telling, and change-makers need to be appreciated.

Building a Team, Inspiring Hearts and Minds, and Celebrating People and Impact, will always be a need to develop and sustain a successful Employee Volunteering Program. 

Building a core team is a consistent process. It does not end with having 10-15 employees on board. It is only the beginning. 

Apart from sustaining the current team, you need to ensure they are willing to mentor future core members. 

The Employee Experience needs to be fulfilling for volunteers to make that transition. They should feel deeply about the program. Be willing to develop those internal relationships.

Know Your Flock To Inspire Employees

Get to know your volunteer leads. What drives them? Do you know their strengths? What are their weaknesses? What are the areas you can mentor them in? Which are the programs best suited for them to shine through?

Let us say you have employees who play music. Include them with other volunteers. They may be shy at first or simply unsure which program to pick. Get both employee volunteer groups to participate in the one-day NGO event. It is an encouraging platform for employee musicians to exhibit their talent. Evaluate areas they could get serious about volunteering. It could be as simple as teaching a group of children at an orphanage how to play the guitar, write songs, or teach them how to sing.

Inspire Employees By Encouraging Them To Speak Their Mind

There are all types of volunteers to deal with. It takes time and effort to get into their minds and hearts. Create an environment for them to speak their mind. Be upfront with those with expectations that do not fit the current scope. Provide them with an alternative if you are aware.

Find a volunteer match for different programs.

A volunteer may prefer to do a long-term project without the hassles of too much protocol. Such as having to enter into a process-oriented Pro Bono program. Get her directly introduced to a partner NGO. Do what is best in the larger scheme of things. Whichever enables a better employee experience.

Keep your core volunteers informed.

Before an all-employee announcement via email, digital displays, or town hall, your core volunteering team should already be aware. It makes them feel special and wanted.

Knowledge is Power.

Educate them with critical knowledge on revised messaging, policy changes, etc. It gives them a sense of belonging and the need to take action.

Equip to Evangelise...

Provide exclusive social content to share via social media. Everyone loves being Retweeted or Liked? Of course, social vanity does not drive committed volunteers. It enables them to be part of purpose-driven conversations with a larger (external) audience. 

Motivate Top-Down to Inspire Employees

Invite senior leaders who are icons and encourage volunteering to motivate top volunteers. Organize 30-minute interactive sessions to drive core messaging. Reiterate organizational culture or inspire them with personal stories. Check with them about what they want to hear from the leaders. It is always great to listen to leaders who resonate with your thinking. It boasts team confidence.

Talk to managers wherever possible. Not every manager supports their team members by taking time out and volunteering. For those who do, chat with them, and get insights into their team members’ volunteer skills and temperaments. Seek advice on how they think their members can be more effective volunteers if there is a particular skill set he wants the team to have. Find which of the CSR offerings makes the most sense for one of his reports to take up. 

Stir up conversations with senior management on the benefits of employee volunteering towards overall employee and company productivity.

Inspiration will come

These are some avenues one can tap into to inspire a core team. It gets lonely sometimes for core volunteers. That feeling of 'I have to do it alone' can wane their interest quickly and decrease their motivational levels. Be wary of volunteers in your team who are bored. Yet showcase a false sense of commitment only to gain attention. Or those who feel they have nothing else to do. Engage them creatively.

Engaging employees in volunteering is more about grace than fulfilling the law. It is more qualitative than it is about quantity. It is more about the intangibles over the tangible processes implemented. To sum up, provide meaningful experiences that light up a person's inner man. 

Getting employees to volunteer for your CSR events can be extremely challenging and stressful. 40-50 hours in the office a week should never be all about work. We are humans, remember? Sometimes we forget, thanks to technology that enables us to do more. Work never stops. We need to stop. To recharge.

Every human is built with a sense of purpose. We have a conscience that finds solace in good deeds. A job alone is not everything for most employees.

Many look to engage themselves beyond work.

Many want to make a difference in people’s lives.

Gear up to guide the change-makers, and maybe you’ll end up awakening some sleeping giants too.

Educate Yourself Before You Build A Team For Employee Volunteering

Employee Communications Is Your Friend

Catch Up with Leaders

With an email sent, along with the rest of the shebang, continue to dialogue with functional leaders informally. Catch them during breaks or request an off-the-record meeting. Request them to drop in a word during their team meetings.

You may not get a great response from employees initially. Don’t worry! If 25/5000 people respond, congratulations, make an email list. Call for a quick meeting to set the right expectations. Off the 25, maybe only 15 can attend your meeting. Despite your having called everyone personally. What is common among the 15 employee volunteers? A Shared Purpose to make a difference. These are your proactive, genuine volunteers, ready, willing, and able to champion relevant employee volunteering causes for your CSR program.

During the meeting (30-45mins)

Post-Meeting, Pre-Event

Pre-Event, brief the entire group of volunteers on the dos and don’ts. Stir them up, encourage them, and do the work of an evangelist. During the event, make a mental note of how some employees were being proactive. Post-event, appreciate those employees who were exceptional, personally. Take feedback, and respond positively to those employees if it’s possible to implement their suggestions. Appreciate the team of volunteers with an email, and mark managers where possible (not every manager endorses CSR activities).

As a CSR Manager or an Employee Volunteer Champion, you need to lead the entire experience. Lead in a way you feel best to ensure volunteers are motivated to come back for the next event. Leading initial events will build their confidence to take it up themselves in the future. Sometimes it gets difficult to let go to allow others to lead. As a CSR Manager or Employee Lead, you need to focus on your core job instead of giving away too much time to managing volunteering events.

Building a core team for employee volunteering is not a one-time effort. It requires commitment and drives to keep employee volunteers going. Make it a point to connect with them regularly. Informal get-togethers yield better results for non-core activities.