Nowadays no one doubts the virtues of a corporate volunteer program, from a social or environmental impact perspective, from how it is capable of transforming the people who live that experience and how this ends up generating impacts of great value for the companies that promote it:
- Improved employee engagement.
- Development of competencies and skills such as adaptability to change, innovation and leadership.
- Making teams work better
Attracting talent
Hence the large number of companies that are starting this journey or seeking to have much more far-reaching and strategic programs.
Many of these companies looking to take a leap forward come to us to support them in this process.
One of the keys that has always worked for us is to make the volunteers more protagonists and make them feel that the program (let's not forget that this is voluntary, hence the fun of it) is theirs and not something imposed.
I don't do it for the company...
These days I was reading a study that precisely highlights this, through an analysis based precisely on what people are looking for when they decide to participate in a corporate volunteering program.
The study tries to delve deeper into the “business case” of volunteering and concludes that it is not so simple and direct all those potential benefits I mentioned before, and it does so by putting itself in the place of the employees.
Why is that?
- Employees’ motivations tend to be very personal and focused on wanting to help, and not so much on other more business-related motivations, which sometimes distances them from the sustainability objectives of the company in which they work.
- They are also very influenced by the facilities or support they perceive from their direct managers, beyond what the top management expresses.
- A critical aspect is the employees’ perception of how authentic or inauthentic their company’s values are and to what extent they identify with them.
Therefore, the study concludes that there is no direct and unequivocal relationship between volunteering and impacts on engagement, competencies, teambuilding, … but rather it will depend on how the employee actually perceives the program, the support for participating in it and the ability to identify with the company’s values.
In this sense, the study highlights that something that always works is to enhance and value the role of volunteers in the volunteer program, especially in programs that already have some experience and where there are volunteers who probably feel that more things could be done and better.
Calls for projects or volunteer leaders: two key tools for this purpose
Specifically, it highlights the importance of:
- Having formal spaces through which volunteers can propose projects and causes that motivate them and in which they can involve other colleagues, such as in calls for projects.
- Have a well-structured and valued volunteer ambassador or leader program that allows volunteers to formally participate in the management of the program.
The key to all of this lies in the employees’ perception of the company’s real commitment to making a social or environmental impact and really promoting volunteering.
In this sense, many volunteer programs are running the very real risk of being perceived as the opposite, that it is just an external interest and a public face, which ends up turning against them.
People want to work in companies of which we feel proud and with which we see ourselves reflected and this generates expectations that are a double-edged sword.
