Companies oftentimes do not focus on the immense opportunity they have to become not only a profit-building entity in their local area, but also a highly-valuable asset to locals with extensive community-value.
We at Synter Resource Group recommend that you have someone in charge of employee engagement within the company. Once that person is in place, have them implement the following six-step process.
Step 1: Compile data.
Ask your employees questions about their availability. Ask them about what topics or causes interest them. Ask what non-profits they already know about in the local area that they may want to volunteer with. Ask whatever questions you think are necessary to find out what they are interested in, where they’d like to volunteer, and when they’d be available to volunteer.
Step 2: Pull stories from the data.
Compile this information in a master spreadsheet. What similarities are there between the employees? Are there any patterns of availability? Are there any patterns in their passion towards certain causes? Are there any non-profits that numerous people mentioned interest in? Take the time to pull stories from this data. Data gives you the hard facts you need to create a narrative about the company as a whole, but only you can take that data and make actionable goals specific to your company based on it.
Step 3: Conduct research.
Once you have pulled the stories from the data, it’s now time to conduct thorough research on the local community and what nonprofits are available within about a half an hour drive from the company for reasonable commuter timing purposes.
Step 4: Present the chosen nonprofits to the leadership team.
You now have the data, associated stories, and viable candidate organizations to connect your employees with. Now, bring this information to the leadership team in an easily digestible and visually engaging manner. Host a vote amongst the leaders to decide which nonprofits your company will formally recommend to employees.
Step 5: Be the match maker.
Set the employees up with non-profit organizations that they each specifically would be interested in based on the data they shared in filling out of the survey in step one. You must absolutely give the disclaimer that you not are liable for any negative experiences employees have with organizations just because your company recommended that the employees check them out.
Step 6: Follow up.
Check back in with them about a week later. Ask such questions as, “What do you think of the non-profit organizations we put you in touch with? Are you planning on volunteering with any of them? Have you set up any plans to volunteer already?”
Then, follow up with them in a few months and ask such questions as, “Have you volunteered yet? If so, how did that experience go? Would you recommend that we send volunteers there in the future?” Make sure to get these follow up sessions with them on the books so that your employees feel the positive pressure to be prepared to answer these questions from you at those designated times.
This is obviously one method of engaging your employees in volunteer experiences locally. What are some other methods that you have experienced that worked for your company? Tweet us @SynterResource to continue the conversation!