Doing Well by Doing Good - The Economic Rationale for Employee Volunteer Programs
Source: Perceptyx
Roughly a quarter of the workforce is actively disengaged, costing the United States approximately $450-550 billion in lost productivity each year.(1) Consider that another two quarters are only partially engaged in the workplace and you can begin to calculate how much these sections of the workforce pie chart are contributing to employee turnover and decreased productivity, enthusiasm, and achievement yearly.
How is a disengaged workforce impacting each business?
What if prioritizing an employee volunteer program could potentially save an employer up to tens of thousands of dollars per employee?
Increased Employee Engagement Helps Employers Reduce Turnover and Achieve Higher Profitability
According to Gallup, “organizations that are the best in engaging their employees achieve earnings-per-share growth that is more than four times that of their competitors. Compared with business units in the bottom quartile, those in the top quartile of engagement realize substantially better customer engagement, higher productivity, better retention, fewer accidents, and higher profitability. Engaged workers also report better health outcomes.” Statistically, high employee engagement increases profitability 16 percent, productivity 18 percent, customer loyalty 12 percent and quality 60 percent.(2)
So how does an employee volunteer program factor in?
Employee Volunteers Are Twice As Likely To Rate Corporate Culture As Very Positive
“According to Darlington (2014), a Deloitte Study found that employee volunteers had the following characteristics:
They were twice as likely to rate corporate culture as very positive (56% vs. 28%)
They were more likely to feel very loyal towards their company (52% vs. 33%)
They were more likely to be very satisfied with their employer (51% vs. 32%)
A poll by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship showed that nearly 90% of the companies that measured the connection between volunteer participation and employee engagement found a positive correlation between the associated scores.
An impressive volunteering record allows a company to stand out from the rest and helps to generate greater customer loyalty (The Social Market Foundation, 2010); 88% of customers are more likely to buy from a business that visibly acts to improve society (Brooks and Schlenkhoff-Hus, 2013) and 75% of the public believes that it is either very important or absolutely essential for companies.” (3)
Keep Employees By Engaging Them Through Volunteerism
“Employees quit their jobs for many reasons (salary and benefits topping the list), but the majority of reasons are actually something employers can control. HumanResources.com sites the following as 10 critical reasons why employees quit their job (in no specific order):
Bad or nonexistent relationship with boss
Bored and unchallenged by the work itself
Lack of relationships/friendship with co-workers
Opportunities to use skills and abilities
Contribution of work to the organization’s business goals
Autonomy and independence
Meaningfulness of work
Organization’s financial stability
Overall corporate culture
Management’s recognition of employee job performance
Instituting an employee volunteer program can help an organization address all ten of these.” (4)
Monetizing Volunteerism
"Volunteerism is a difficult concept to monetize because the myriad ways volunteers contribute are not always measurable. But in looking at what is quantifiable, Independent Sector estimates the national value of each volunteer hour is worth $27.20 per hour. Derived from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ database of job functions and mean wages, this calculation is a way to assign a monetary value to the time employees donate. So if 50 employees each volunteer 8 hours to a nonprofit throughout the course of a year, instead of reporting that a company volunteered 400 hours, the company can share that they provided approximately $10,880 worth of volunteer time to that nonprofit. That’s a significant business contribution to the community, and a value the boards and other important stakeholders are more likely to comprehend and appreciate." (4)
Making Volunteer Programs Scalable, Measurable and Meaningful
By engaging employees in volunteer programs, companies can derive a variety of benefits, including: greater productivity, improved reputation, increased employee retention, and lower cost of recruiting while positively impacting the community around them. Dare we imagine the multiplier effect if employees in every organization, in every country, volunteered?
Reach out to learn more about how we can help you make your employee volunteering and giving programs scalable, measurable and meaningful.
Source: RealizedWorth