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There’s a humanity deficit at work. And it’s contributing to employee and manager burnout. According to Gallup, about a quarter of your people are experiencing stress and burnout at work. The new WFA hybrid world of work—requiring us to be able to work from anywhere, including the four walls of an office building—does provide more opportunities for human connection than the all-remote world we experienced in 2020, but WFA is never going to completely fill us up with the human connections we crave. According to a Gartner Report, your people are seeking meaning and purpose more than ever now that the pandemic has become endemic. They want to contribute value and have impact. One way to achieve this is through programs that place your people as volunteers to support communities.
Providing volunteering opportunities is not a new idea. Companies like IBM and PwC have long acknowledged that volunteering can create a positive experience for their employees. What is new is how much more valuable these opportunities are, in a climate of high turnover and a new work paradigm that has created significant disconnects in the mindset of employees.
Corporate-sponsored volunteering programs traditionally consist of activities designed to serve those in need at a variety of sites, and companies often sponsor time off and regular compensation for their employees who participate. But that approach has some shortcomings; employees often don’t spend a significant amount of time in a community and instead volunteer for a specific event or for a nonprofit organization that in turn serves the community.
Unfortunately, there is little evidence available that lasting change occurs inside the communities being served, and the true impact on the individual employee is in question too. While every contribution of time and talent is useful, the one-off approach is sometimes seen as little more than a photo op for the company’s PR campaigns.
In new research published in the Academy of Management journal, distinguished Professor Cristina Gibson of Pepperdine’s Graziadio Business School studied a different type of volunteer program, which she calls corporate-community co-development. This program involved secondments (second assignments, which dispatch an employee from their regular organization) where employees lived and worked in an at-risk community for 6 weeks to 3 months. In her research, which took place over three years and involved many different companies and communities, she found strong partnerships were built, and deep psychological and social change occurred in large part because the focus was on the process.
Through her observations and interviews, Gibson found the results were extraordinary, both for the employees and the communities they supported. Gibson observed, “This type of volunteer program had a powerful impact on the communities they served. Community members experienced gains in dignity, self-determination and professional skills.” One community leader said, “Our ultimate goal is to ensure that people have the capabilities to choose a life they have reason to value. Employment opportunities and longer-term benefits to community are starting to be realized. Partnerships have enabled the community to engage with business. Capacity is growing as we go forward with our heads held high.”
And the volunteers reported that this experience was life changing for them, transforming their thinking and perspective, and resulting in personal growth as well as a far greater understanding of the community challenges.
The companies that sponsored these experiences benefited too. Volunteers reported longer-term change in their attitudes toward their employers and in their work performance. In addition, 72% of the corporations increased employee loyalty, 72% increased employee performance, and 59% reported increased customer engagement. All companies described reputational gains and many reported gains in productivity.
As an employee, when you participate in a program like this, you learn and grow and become a true advocate for your organization. What you bring back to the organization is invaluable. One volunteer said, “The secondment was very powerful. It was a ‘this is it’ moment. This put me in a space of being able to contemplate where I was and importantly identify shortfalls. The combination proved to be the most powerful personal development experience I have ever had in my life.”
How can you get involved? Talk to your HR or CSR folks to see if there’s a program like this at your company, and if there isn’t one, become the advocate for it. Not-for-profit organizations like CARE and the Red Cross can help broker such relationships between your company and communities needing support.
For a workforce that is now rethinking every aspect of what it means to lead a meaningful life, replacing surface-level volunteering with intensive, long-term service is a proven way to showcase what’s special about working for your company—and how to ensure that your values and your career are part of the same fulfilling path.
