Picture this: You are a remote team of 650 employees spanning across North America. While remote work has allowed your organization to attract a diverse talent pool and remain agile in an environment where employees value flexible working arrangements, you find that employee engagement is lacking.
Engaged employees strive to form and maintain a meaningful connection with their employers and colleagues. A connection where they are emotionally and mentally invested in their organization and care about contributing to the success of their company’s goals. While deep connections can be formed through out-of-office team activity days, in-person conferences, or lunch & learns—not every organization has the resources to provide these opportunities.
However, when volunteering is integrated into workplace culture through a corporate volunteer program, these volunteer opportunities (both in person and virtual) can open up new avenues for idea sharing and connections to develop while making employees feel valued at work: all components of an engaged remote workforce.
While your organization may know the inner workings of a volunteer program or may just be getting acquainted with how a volunteer program can be started, you may wonder what virtual volunteer opportunities exist for your remote workforce to partake in.
We discuss 5 virtual volunteer opportunities where employees can provide acts of kindness (both individually and in teams) to become more engaged:
5 virtual volunteer opportunities to engage your remote workforce:
1. Emotional support volunteer
Employees can provide support to isolated senior individuals living in retirement or long-term care homes. Emotional support can be provided through 1-on-1 discussions, where an employee provides compassion, reassurance, and encouragement to isolated seniors going through a difficult time.
Other activities can also include reading short stories over the phone, and depending on the level of technology a senior is comfortable with, a video call could be conducted in which online activity is completed, such as a crossword or word jumble. For some extra help, another employee volunteer can be brought into the video call to provide assistance.
2. Trash clean-up volunteer
Employees can all take one paid volunteer day off together to venture out into their respective communities and pick up trash along a park, trail, or beach. Once the volunteer day is completed, a video call can commence where each employee shares the highlights and accomplishments of their day.
Additionally, every success from a volunteer day can be acknowledged and celebrated throughout your organization with Kambeo’s interactive activity feed. Using Kambeo, each employee has the ability to create a customized profile and share any photos from their volunteer day for their colleagues to see. As photos are shared, all colleagues can interact with these posts, “virtually” patting each other on the back.
3. Afterschool coaching volunteer
Employees can assist high school students with completing their university applications, provide post-secondary education advice, or even help students work on their resumes and cover letters to apply for afterschool part-time jobs. This activity can be done individually or in a group setting, where a small number of employees can volunteer together virtually to help a student with their resume or job application through a video call.
Similar to a group project, each employee’s strengths will have the ability to shine, helping that student succeed more than they would have with just one coaching volunteer. Maybe one employee excels at formatting while another employee excels at writing: a combination of skills to amplify any resume.
4. Tutoring volunteer
Providing students who need some extra assistance preparing for an upcoming test or exam is a rewarding experience for each employee who gives their time. Tutoring services can be offered through after-school programs that help school students of all ages with subjects like math, English, history, and more.
Tutoring can also be done virtually in a group setting. For example, say a group of employees are tutoring one student in math. Employees can split up the roles of lesson planning, teaching, grading, and providing feedback. Even if a particular volunteer role, such as lesson planning, doesn’t involve physical presence through a video call, that employee can still be involved in the tutoring process and work with their colleagues outside the bounds of their day job.
5. Event coordinator volunteer
In this volunteer position, an employee volunteer will coordinate with the office staff of a nonprofit or charity to complete a series of administrative tasks in preparation for a fundraising event. Duties could include editing and designing invitations, drafting promotional social media posts, ordering food & beverages from vendors, or liaising with event attendees to answer any questions. Helping out with these administrative tasks alleviates some of the work that nonprofit or charity staff members are tasked with.
Employees can join forces and work in teams to assist these nonprofits and charities with the logistics of their event planning. Tasks can be divided and conquered, and accomplishments can be celebrated among team members along the way!
Managing and operating a remote workforce doesn’t mean employee engagement has to suffer. Through a corporate volunteer program, virtual volunteer opportunities lead to satisfied, motivated, and connected employees.
Interested in finding virtual volunteer opportunities that your employees can partake in together? Book a demo to learn more about how Kambeo can engage your remote workforce through virtual volunteering, no matter where your employees are in the world.
