September 2004
Workplace Volunteerism: Have We Thought this Through?
Responses for this topic
The concept of employers stimulating and supporting community service
by their employees has been accepted by our field almost as gospel.
I am going to assume that everyone reading this Hot Topic knows the
arguments in favor of recruiting volunteers through their place of
employment, especially from large businesses but also from nonprofit
and government workplaces. So, in the interest of provoking some
rarely-done analysis of this practice, * I’d like to outline
some of the issues that increasingly concern me about the way that
workplace volunteering is evolving – and these issues crop
up everywhere in the world.
Issue 1: How does employee volunteering
fit into the larger picture of corporate social responsibility?
We have learned to be skeptical of politicians who systematically
cut government budgets for social programs and then exhort citizens
to volunteer for the very causes just underfunded. In the same vein,
some corporations find employee volunteering to be an easy way to
add a veneer of social conscience to their business practices – as
long as the service is offered to causes removed from anything that
might affect the company’s reputation.
It’s comparatively painless to urge employees to volunteer
(particularly on their own time), but a whole lot harder to assure
other forms of good citizenship as a company such as:
- Acting both legally and ethically, and encouraging a culture
in which employees are rewarded rather than punished for internal
activism that uncovers illegal or unethical practices.
- Showing concern for the environment, particularly in the production
of goods in ways that do not pollute, affect fragile ecologies,
or create waste that is not biodegradable.
- Operate with fair labor practices in hiring, working conditions,
and benefits – when possible beyond the bare minimums most
governments require.
To me, a company that ignores these responsibilities but extols
volunteering by its employees is attempting to deflect public (and
employee) attention from its own shortcomings. It’s also possible
to focus the energies of employees on solutions to problems the company
creates or wishes to avoid – a form of community service many
employees would truly welcome.
Efforts at developing a workplace volunteer program only make sense
as a logical extension of a company’s culture and meets the
following criteria:
-
Volunteer projects directly relate to the businesses core mission
(its areas of expertise). In fairness, this also put some responsibility
on volunteer program managers not to request help for every cause
under the sun from any business close at hand.
-
The activities
of employee volunteers directly affect the company’s
consumers and/or the neighborhoods in closest proximity to company
offices and plants – or help employees and their families
themselves (such as scholarship fundraisers).
-
There is tangible
involvement of some kind from the company, beyond informing
employees of what they can do in their spare time.
By the way, I happen to believe that paid “release time” is
one of the least important aspects of employer-supported volunteering.
Sure it’s nice to see, but it also becomes an excuse for the
company to support only a minimal amount of community service time.
Far more welcome is sincere flex time. For example, it is
extremely valuable to allow employees to leave work at, say, 3 p.m.
in order to tutor, coach, or be a troop leader after school, or to
allow employees to extend their lunch hour in order to deliver Meals
on Wheels. People don’t mind having to make up those two to
three hours a week, they just hate begging for permission to take
time off.
Issue 2: Who should be part of workplace
volunteering?
For a long time I’ve found it humorous that business executives
had to be “sold” on the benefits of employee volunteering
when, in fact, it’s the management level that has been doing
this all along. Top brass has been walking out of the building to
attend community board or civic project planning committee meetings
forever. This, however, is never labeled “volunteering.” It
should trouble us that most employee volunteer programs focus on
the lowest level employee and do not encourage middle management
and higher to participate as well.
On a different topic, why do we, as volunteer program managers,
focus our attention mainly on Fortune 500 companies? The bigger the
corporation, the less direct concern it has for local communities.
Really small corner businesses have always been involved in helping
the community (just take a look at the backs of Little League baseball
team uniforms). Where are mid-sized companies? Where are Chambers
of Commerce when it comes to encouraging their members to consider
volunteer efforts as community development?
Issue 3: What is the rationale for nonprofit
and government agencies to jump on this bandwagon?
I’ve saved the best for last. In the past five years or so
it’s become popular for larger nonprofits and various government
employers (local, state, and federal) to proudly announce work-release
options and days of service for their employees. Huh? What’s
the justification for that?
Before everyone jumps on me, let me explain that I definitely welcome
any employer offering flex time for those workers who volunteer and
need to be able to adjust their work schedule to accommodate their
commitment. This includes permitting employees to hold planning meetings
during the day, if necessary. I also think that any support to volunteer
recruitment is great: holding volunteer opportunity fairs, allowing
recruitment notices on bulletin boards or intranets, and generally
allowing the community to have access to employees to inform them
of what the needs and possibilities are. And volunteering as a form
of employee training, professional development, or orientation to
the community works, too.
My problem is with paying the salaries of nonprofit or government
employees to go out into the community and help some other cause.
The very purpose of a nonprofit and of government is already to
be doing socially-responsible work. Their mission is
to serve the public, work paid for by donors or taxpayers.
I think we have gravitated to expanding what started as business
employee volunteering to any “workplace” volunteering
largely because we fear no one will be available to help our organizations
during the typical work day unless we go to people already employed
during those hours. This speaks more to our lack of creativity in
recruitment than to justification to move past for-profit businesses.
After all, there are still all those mid-size companies to tackle,
as well as round-the-clock shifts no one seems to invite to volunteer.
The most logical person to serve your organization at 9:00 a.m. on
a workday is the one who just finished a work shift at 7:00 a.m.
We routinely expect people to give us evening hours after a 9:00
to 5:00 day, why not after an 11 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. “day”?
But this would require doing recruiting at 3:00 a.m. (to reach these
folks), so instead we fight the work-release time battle on our own
work schedule.
OK. I’m ready for the slings and arrows! And also your thoughtful
reactions. Please share them all.
____________________
*Some readers might be interested
in the last time I considered employer-supported volunteering in
a Hot Topic, which was back in 1997: Redirecting Corporate Volunteering:
Making Welfare Reform Work http://www.energizeinc.com/hot/oct97.html
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