Volunteering key to employee engagement

What do you provide your employees?

The 2012 RedBalloon/Altus Q Employee Engagement Capabilities Report found that time off for volunteering was the activity most likely to improve an employer's engagement score – as long as all the other basic employee services were in place.

The benefits of volunteering to one’s general health and wellbeing are well documented, and employee volunteering is fast becoming a major part of the corporate responsibility mix across a wide range of businesses.

More and more organisations are choosing to add this benefit to the employee experience, for reasons are varied as increasing employee self-confidence and skills, encouraging team work and communication, to the more charitable benefits associated with giving back.

According to RedBalloon General Manager of Corporate Matt Geraghty, “Many businesses do not have the financial capacity to donate sums of money to charity and other deserving organisations.”

“So being able to leveraging their most valuable assets – their staff – to make an impact on the wider community is a great way to exercise their corporate social responsibility.”

“Philanthropic HR policies are in line with the generous nature of Australians; just think of the massive support in recent years to the Brisbane Floods and the Victorian Bushfires. In fact, the 2010 World Giving Index of 153 countries rated Australia as number one in terms of people's willingness to give money.”

“So it seems logical for this attitude of giving back to extend to the workplace,” Mr Geraghty said.

RedBalloon support a number of charities through the corporate social responsibility program ‘We Care’, and these are selected based on employee choice, with each RedBallooner entitled to one extra day’s paid leave each year to go and work for a charity of their choosing.

Last year Emma Nicolle, RedBalloon Corporate Account Director, spent nine hours building and decorating Christmas hamper boxes for Youth Off The Streets.

“The best part of the day was being able to get stuck into some serious physical labour that I knew would make a big difference to literally hundreds of needy families around NSW who wouldn’t otherwise have any treats for Christmas,” Ms Nicolle said.

"I grew up in a community-minded family so RedBalloon's 'We Care' program is just another project that helps me feel at home in my job.

“Homelessness, particularly for the young, is a cause I am very passionate about so it was fantastic to be able to choose the charity I wanted to work with.

RedBallooners are an incredibly generous bunch and it makes me proud to think of all the varied causes we are supporting.”

Here’s interesting reading on this topic from RedBalloon Founding Director Naomi Simson.

Date: 26/04/2012