What types of volunteering should employees consider?
It’s not as if people have to look for a voluntary association. It starts with a shift in thinking, from, ‘I am the center of the world,’ to a willingness to act toward others in helpful ways.
A few tips to start:
- Be open-minded. It’s important to do something you love.
- Make realistic commitments.
- Consider volunteering time to something that the employer or employees are passionate about.
What can employers do to encourage their employees to volunteer?
Employers interested in promoting volunteerism can start by encouraging the company’s leadership to get involved. Leadership throughout the organization is necessary to really create the environment of volunteerism as a corporate value.
Some effective practices include:
- Setting up an employee volunteering Web site, where employees can post stories and pictures, and comment on others’ volunteer work
- Customizing messages for middle managers that show support for volunteerism and explain its benefits to the company and its employees
- Getting HR to advocate for volunteerism. Volunteer projects can be used for employees looking to develop project management or related skills
- Considering an all-company, single-day volunteer event to motivate employees to become more involved. OfficeMax, for example, shuts down nearly its entire company one day every October to give back to local schools in more than 1,000 cities nationwide
- Establishing a systemized process where employees can search volunteer requests from nonprofit organizations
- Offering skill-based volunteering
- Running a campaign to help build a spirit of volunteerism in the workplace culture
- Creating special events where employees can volunteer together
The workplace is an excellent place to promote volunteerism and recruit volunteers. Whether large or small, local or national, any business can be a source of volunteer power in the community. And volunteer programs in the workplace are most successful when they are based on integrating the priorities of the company, the interests of the employees and the needs of the community.
Sally Stephens is president of Spectrum Health Systems. Reach her at (317) 573-7600 or [email protected].
