Friday, March 01, 2013
It is hard enough to keep projects and project teams on track, on time, and in budget. So why would any organization loan some of their best talent out to philanthropic and non-profit organizations in the competitive environment most employers find themselves today? Certainly, there is a degree of good-will, community relations, bragging rights, and some free publicity to be sure with any organization who would engage in lending their talent.
Xerox, the business process and document management company, has granted fully-paid leaves in 2013 to a number of Xerox employees to work for non-profits inside their communities. Established in 1971, Xerox’s Social Service Leave program has loaned over 500 employees to support local community non-profits. Xerox employees provide a wide range of organizational and fund raising skills to numerous private community non-profit social welfare enterprises.
Campbell’s Soup, IBM, Exxon Mobil, HP, Microsoft, Bank of America, Marriott, Dominion (energy generation), Lockheed Martin, Bridgestone (tires), Georgia-Pacific, GE, and Ford are a sampling of organizations which have employee volunteer programs which support employees who share their time, talent, knowledge, and skills with philanthropic and non-profit organizations. While various organizations have a diverse range of purposes to support these efforts, one often stated reason is employee attraction and retention. Many employers recognize that the kind of employee, who can benefit their organization, is also the kind of employee who is engaged with their community.
Employee volunteer programs (EVP) have its own acronym B2C, “Business to Community”. EVP’s often require external support, so a business infrastructure has developed to support it. Causecast, HandsOn Network, Cause Capitalism, and CorpsGiving are among EVP support organizations which have as their goal to improve the performance of an employer’s EVP experience. The common theme with these organizations is employee attraction, retention, motivation, engagement, reward, and recognition. However, in an era of limited salary budgets, reduced staff resources, and increased competition; allowing the organization’s best talent time off to volunteer in local public schools (Georgia-Pacific) seems to be counter-productive.
Many organizations have discovered that employee volunteer programs provide a means for employees to develop job related skills and to improve those which they already process. Working in teams by installing insulation (Dominion), employees acquire both leadership and team skills which may later be used in an organizational setting. Stocking and organizing food at food banks (Ford) is one to engage and integrate summer interns into an organization’s culture. Support for Distributive Education Clubs of America (Marriott) is one way to introduce high school students into the business world and lays the grand work for potential future employees.
Top performing employees, by their very nature, are interested in a robust work-life experience. They are looking for more that an 8-5, check-in check-out relationship with their employer and their community. Whether large or small, innovative organizations are able to take advantage of their top performers’ level of engagement to the benefit of the organization, clients, community, and the employee.
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