Employee community involvement program

When businesses empower employees to make positive change, they cultivate a deeply rewarding, highly-engaged company culture that is intrinsically linked to its surrounding community.

However your team members choose to give back, the program connects them with a larger network of change-makers who help amplify their contribution to create real, measurable change. Across the board, participating companies find that the program boosts engagement and helps involve employees in company sustainability initiatives.

It also cultivates a sense of community within the company, particularly among virtual and in-house employees. It brings innovation to work. It makes you more community-oriented, more customer-oriented. All aspects of the workforce get better as a result. While EcoChallenge provides organizations with a short-term employee volunteer program, many companies also want to cultivate a structured, year-round conversation around community involvement.

These courses give your team members an opportunity to connect their personal vision to their work, deepening engagement and cultivating a culture of dynamic, collaborative leaders. Each course includes articles from thought leaders and discussion questions designed to help break big issues into bite-sized pieces. The Discussion Courses also connect your team members to a global network of fellow participants who are learning from the same material more than , people worldwide!

It all starts with identifying a course organizer from your company to lead the charge. Discussion courses are employee-led and self-facilitated, offering employees leadership opportunities and new ways to connect.

Think of it like a Community Champion — your most powerful influencers come from within the company, modeling leadership for fellow employees and engaging team members to stretch themselves and grow in new ways.

Each Discussion Course lasts from five to seven weeks and are often held during lunch breaks, before work, or after work. As a result, the program creates an ongoing conversation within your company about how to strengthen community relationships and make a positive impact.

Even better, Discussion Courses connect team members from every level of the organization, bringing virtual team members, company leaders, and new hires together to rally behind a common cause.

One of the most consistent outcomes of Discussion Courses is a shift in how companies live out their core values. Having regional community involvement ambassador teams helps rally employees around a cause and generates a sense of inclusiveness and shared purpose. Even if your company is smaller in size or has only one location, the team connects people around a common goal. Whether you have 2, employees or , everybody wins. Alessandra Cavalluzzi advises both corporate funders and nonprofits and is a sought-after guest speaker and panelist at HR and nonprofit events.

She currently oversees corporate giving, fundraising and employee volunteerism for a multibillion-dollar company with over 6, employees around the world. You may be trying to access this site from a secured browser on the server. Please enable scripts and reload this page. By Alessandra Cavalluzzi July 18, Reuse Permissions. Image Caption. Consultation Employee Relations. You have successfully saved this page as a bookmark. OK My Bookmarks. Please confirm that you want to proceed with deleting bookmark.

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Your session has expired. Please log in as a SHRM member. Employee-driven volunteerism always makes sense. You can help them by creating options. You can start by supporting what your employees are already doing.

You ask if she wants help and support from the company — and she says yes. Everyone wins. As an involved community member, you may know about an organization that needs volunteers on a regular basis. Maybe your team will volunteer together at the soup kitchen, food bank or a YMCA program.

There may be organizations that are a natural fit with your business. For example, a hospital might align with nonprofit agencies that provide free mammograms. Network within your community and industry to find those natural fits.

Many nonprofits typically have volunteer coordinators who can help you identify volunteer efforts that benefit their agencies. Starting a company community involvement program is about finding out what your employees are interested in and the needs within your community — and then creating a match. Offering employees paid time off to volunteer is a huge perk.

If at all possible, you should do it. You may not have much cash to give to a variety of organizations, but you may be in a position to offer a few of hours of employee time. Providing this perk could be a way of setting your company apart from your competitors. You might be concerned about employees taking advantage of the paid time off for volunteerism. Anyone who takes advantage of a program like this just might take advantage of other things, as well.

However, if you recognize and reward employees for their good works, it exposes others to the kind of behavior that you and your company value.