TQL Engages Millennials at Record Rate with New Approach to Workplace Giving
TQL Engages Millennials at Record Rate with New Approach to Workplace Giving
Open-choice program connects new workforce to new communities — and company
Giving back has been an integral part of Total Quality Logistics (TQL), the second largest freight brokerage in North America, since the beginning. The company’s leadership, all homegrown in Cincinnati, has strong ties to the local community and has always encouraged their employees to get involved in giving and volunteering.
TQL Cares – the company’s workplace giving program – was established in 2006 to deepen employee engagement, while making a positive impact in the community. For 10 years, this program took a fairly traditional approach, with an annual giving campaign that lasted two weeks, small matching programs and volunteer endorsements, but only for Cincinnati-area employees.
Big growth meant big challenges
As the company experienced major growth, expanding to 58 satellite locations across North America, their workforce also shifted towards a younger demographic now comprised of 90% Millennials. These changes created several new challenges for the TQL Cares program.
With the TQL expansion, most employees were new and it was important to help them connect with each other, the company and their local communities. Finding local giving and volunteering opportunities across locations was a challenge, and administrators discovered that what was meaningful for people in Cincinnati didn’t necessarily resonate with those in Orlando or Knoxville.
TQL’s traditional approach to annual giving, informal matching and volunteering programs was all managed manually, by various administrators, with spreadsheets and forms. With no central place for people to connect with TQL Cares, the programs were under-promoted, under-utilized and they underperformed.
