74% of employees believe volunteering provides them with a sense of purpose, and employee turnover drops by an average of 57% when employees are deeply connected to their companies’ volunteer efforts.
While these statistics are proof that company volunteer programs work to improve employee engagement and reduce turnover, organizations must have a healthy participation rate in their volunteer program to see notable results.
Although a 100% participation rate isn’t practical or realistic, we uncover 4 tactics for how your organization can motivate your employees to become active community supporters. These tactics will inspire your employees to take the initiative and make a real change in their local communities through your company’s volunteer program.
Create team volunteer opportunities
Host and organize company-wide volunteer events. Your employees may not have the desire to pursue volunteer opportunities at an individual level, but with the ability to join forces with their colleagues to partake in a volunteer day, their outlook toward volunteering can certainly change. Group volunteering spurs collaboration, communication, and creativity, enabling employees to work cohesively as a unit and form tight-knit connections.
For instance, a company-wide volunteer day could involve helping to maintain a community garden. Throughout the volunteer day, employees can work in small groups to gather resources such as seeds, soil, and planting equipment and then go off to plant different flowers and vegetables around the garden.
Incorporate virtual volunteering
If you want to create social volunteer opportunities but operate with a remote employee base, virtual volunteering is the answer. Thanks to video conferencing technology, employees who work in different locations can effectively brainstorm and implement ideas to achieve a common volunteer goal.
For example, a virtual volunteer opportunity that can be performed in a group setting is a school supply giveaway. Employees can spend a day virtually brainstorming resources to give to a select school (resources such as water bottles, backpacks, pens and paper etc..) over a video call, coordinate the distribution logistics over Slack, and then send the school supplies on their way for the students in need!
Share photos and accomplishments
Regardless of whether a group volunteer opportunity was conducted in person or online, post-event acknowledgement is essential for continued volunteer involvement. For an in-person volunteer event, appoint select employees to take photos throughout the day of individuals engaging in that volunteer activity and working together!
While no physical presence is required at a virtual volunteering event, photos can still be taken throughout or after the event. For instance, if your employees virtually helped organize and manage a school supply giveaway, ask the school to take photos of all the supplies they received! Once the photos are received, share this with the rest of your organization to acknowledge the commitment and enthusiasm of your employee volunteers.
Kambeo provides a platform for organizations to share their greatest successes in the world of social good. Through Kambeo’s activity feed, organizations can upload and caption photos from their company-wide volunteer day with other users of the platform. While other social media platforms display an array of promotional, educational, and inspirational posts, the content shared on Kambeo is exclusively focused on social impact.
Reward participation
Rewarding hard work and dedication can take form annually, aside from regular recognition through activity feed posts. For example, at the end of each year, the employee(s) who have accumulated the most volunteer hours or surpassed a specific volunteer goal can win a gift card or an all-expenses-paid spa day!
Additionally, a great strategy to reward all employees (no matter the amount of volunteer hours they contributed) is to send a handwritten card to each volunteer. These personalized tokens of appreciation show your employees that their passion for their community is admired.
When employees are recognized for their volunteer contributions, they will be more likely to continue to discover and connect with other volunteer opportunities to participate in, with colleagues or individually, through their company volunteer program. Furthermore, by sharing photos and acknowledging accomplishments verbally, employees who haven’t participated in a volunteer day are more likely to take action.
Starting a company volunteer program is a great first step. However, it is from the efforts of your employees that your organization will begin to make a real impact. Once participation is maximized, your organization’s volunteer hours will accumulate while your employees provide vital services to groups and individuals within the community: both accomplishments to look back on and feel good about.
