Have you ever considered arranging a day of volunteering for your employees?
Whether it lasts for one afternoon every week or two full days per year, volunteering programs can significantly assist in developing your employees’ confidence, people skills and productivity.
Several examples of volunteer work you can choose from:
- Serving meals in a homeless shelter
- Cleaning cages and walking dogs in animal shelters
- Helping out at charity fundraising events
- Litter picking in the local park
- Helping to construct or maintain council houses
Many volunteer schemes enable you to learn and practise new skills, so you should discuss this with your employees and choose an activity they have a unanimous interest in.
How does corporate volunteering benefit your employees?
Volunteering has the ability to make everyone involved feel happy, as well as have positive long term effects on your company culture.
The main business benefits of creating a volunteering program are:
- Boost employee engagement and workplace relations
Just like external team building activities, volunteering gives your employees the chance to experience something new and work together as a team to help others. It can be incredibly uplifting and inspiring to volunteer your time and it gives your employees a whole new perspective on their job. It’s also refreshing to simply get out of the office for a day and still spend your time doing something productive.
- Improved reputation and brand awareness
When you and your team volunteer, you can wear the same clothing featuring your company logo or colours. This will help your brand be recognised easier and will boost your reputation and company image throughout your community. During volunteering activities you can take pictures and share them on your business’ social media profile, as this will boost your online presence and raise even more awareness.
- Help attract quality talent in the future
With an improved reputation, stronger company image and engaged employees you will undoubtedly be viewed as a great company to work for. Being a socially responsible company is very attractive and will help you fill job vacancies much faster. Offering volunteer schemes will also give you an advantage over your main competitors.
Having volunteers in your organisation
If you own a not-for-profit organisation, it’s likely that you have taken on volunteers before. Provided that you are compliant with the law, volunteers can be a real asset to your business.
By offering volunteer opportunities within your business you are raising awareness of your cause and building stronger relationships with your community. Volunteers can also bring new opinions and ideas forward about the way you do things, as they will have a completely fresh overview of your business compared to permanent employees. They may modernise aspects of your operations or give you a new insight into what your community is in need of.
There’s the very obvious benefit to having volunteers, which is saving money. Understandably, you need to invest plenty of time into volunteers so that they are able to carry out jobs properly, but this will cost a lot less than paying monthly wages.
Volunteers Week 2018
Volunteers Week is a week-long campaign that takes place yearly in the UK, starting on June 1st.
It is arranged by The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) and was designed with the purpose of celebrating the contributions volunteers make to our city and businesses. Organisations are being encouraged to participate in any way that they can.
You can involve your business or your employees in a variety of ways; all you need to do is check the campaign’s website and find activities local to you, or alternatively you can share posts on social media with the hashtag #NVW2018.
