What’s Next in Employee Engagement: Expertise, Choice, Rewards
An engaged workforce is a productive workforce – but how can companies create opportunities for meaningful employee engagement? Gone are the days of simply allocating a portion of each paycheck to support a nonprofit or participating in a one-off volunteerism activity. Today, employee engagement is about empowering your team to not only participate in, but determine and lead CSR activities. It's also about building an inspired workforce, while attracting and retaining top talent.
On the 40th anniversary of National Volunteer Week, let's take a moment to look at some of the ways employee engagement has evolved:
1. One-off to Deep Experiences: As part of the spectrum of engagement, leading companies are creating deeper employee engagement experiences to build ambassadors and tell their social impact story. Xylem* has created a spectrum of employee engagement opportunities as part of its corporate citizenship commitment, Xylem Watermark. This includes an annual, 10-day Global Volunteer Trip comprised of a small group of Xylem employees who leverage their expertise alongside Xylem's global nonprofit partners to support hands-on water projects in developing countries.
2. Traditional to Skills-Based: Companies are looking beyond financial donations to matching specialized skillsets to help solve specific nonprofit needs. The Billion + Change initiative is a national campaign to inspire companies to develop meaningful pro bono and skills-based volunteer initiatives in service to nonprofits. This effort has engaged more than 500 companies to deliver more than $2 billion worth of skills-based and pro bono volunteer services. Engineers at Toyota leveraged their business model focused on efficiency to help transform the way The Food Bank for New York City serves the community, including reducing the wait time for clients at a soup kitchen in Harlem.
To read more on Cone's Prove Your Purpose blog, please click here.
*Cone client
