Many studies show that participating in a corporate volunteering program helps develop personal skills that benefit professional performance and the work environment in the organizations that implement it. This is a reality that no one doubts and, therefore, more and more companies are connecting their corporate volunteering programs with talent programs.
People develop when we have to develop ourselves in an unfamiliar environment and leave our “circle of comfort”, using our talents. This generates much more intense learning than using those same talents in a familiar, everyday context. Generally, volunteering places people in such a context outside their “comfort circles”, thus producing a very favorable environment for learning.
Being exposed to and interacting with different people facilitates the development of mutual understanding and empathy, leading to intercultural competencies (knowledge and skills that make it possible to function effectively and appropriately when interacting with other people who are linguistically and culturally different), which are essential in the global society and economy in which we live.
The accumulated experience of so many years linking corporate volunteering with talent development has led us to take a step further and look for allies to reinforce this fact, not only from a social perspective but also from a learning and talent point of view. And that is what we have achieved with Human Way, experts in talent development, friends and fellow travelers.
Your development adds up goes beyond the traditional training model. Making learning conscious from the volunteer experience combines two elements (Social Action + Talent Development) of great value for teams today.
With an eminently experiential approach, the program we propose also incorporates part of formal learning and learning from interaction with other people, thus covering the 70-20-10 learning and development model with which it is proven that professionals learn best.
Attributes of volunteering that positively influence professional development
- DISCONTEXTUALIZATION: Being exposed to new environments.
- PERSONAL INTERACTION: Opportunity to interact with different people.
- EMOTIONAL CONNECTION: Activities with a strong emotional component that remain in the memory.
- LEADERSHIP: Opportunity to play leadership roles in a safe environment.
And how are we going to do it?
First of all, it is important to “land” the work model to the reality of your organization to then be able to “take off” and set a course for the development that each professional will undertake. From there, work will be based on three pillars:
- Preparation of the participants: in order to maximize the use of the program and their development, with training workshops and individual evaluations.
- Accompanying them during the volunteer experience: during the development of the program, in addition to coordinating the volunteer activities, individual and group accompaniment will be carried out.
- Assessment of the development and social impact generated: at the end of the volunteer program, we propose to certify both learning and social impact.
A lot of experience and a lot of illusion. We are sure that Tu Desarrollo Suma will help to close a circle that many of us perceive and that is not so easy to put into practice.
