Improving Employee Engagement Through Community Outreach Programs

Employee engagement levels are declining globally, and organizations are increasingly concerned about the uncertainty that comes with a lack of motivation in the labor force. But one reliable solution for businesses to improve employee engagement is having well-planned and run community outreach programs.

A recent employee engagement research study showed that up to 24% of employees feel disconnected regarding matters concerning social responsibility. Having an integrated corporate volunteer program can be the key to driving innovation, creativity, and engagement among employees.

How can you improve employee engagement through community outreach programs?

Tailor Community Outreach Programs for Your Business

Engaging in local volunteering, community outreach, and social responsibility programs set the precedent that your business is all about social good. A company-wide approach to community outreach allows your business to bring together and connect employees across all departments and professional levels.

According to Jenny Van Gelder, Co-Founder of Executive Auto Shippers, “Every community has a need, and every employee has a passion, and our goal is to bring those needs and passions together to make our community stronger.” Tailoring community outreach programs to your business and employee passions is key to improving organizational engagement.

Structure Community Programs Around Departments

One of the keys to enhancing internal cooperation is coordinating events and programs for specific business departments. This encourages creative problem-solving among department employees to identify and make sense of the social responsibility challenges they need to solve. Community outreach programs structured around departments can enjoy a more agile and flexible strategy.

Employees can engage in insightful discussions and explore volunteering trends and themes in corporate giving. The interactive and productive team-based experiences of engaging in department-driven community outreach and volunteering programs significantly improve overall employee participation and, ultimately, better engagement.

Encourage Employees to Take Charge

Corporate outreach is no longer about brand social responsibility. Businesses need to look more at how they can customize volunteering around individual employees. Sometimes your organization can offer the most significant contribution through highly-specialized personal services. To provide the highest community support, businesses must combine corporate-driven and individual volunteering efforts to amplify employee engagement.

It’s advisable to encourage employees in every department to take on individual community social projects with relevant nonprofit partners that they are passionate about. Since every employee knows your community outreach goals, they can easily contribute their skills to nonprofits that request help. A strong social support network is pivotal to the engagement and success of any organization.

Make Community Giving Mobile

All your employees communicate via mobile and social media. So your corporate outreach program needs to be there with them. Apart from participating in community giving and volunteering drives, you should also provide your employees and clients with a highly interactive, mobile, and social platform where they can create individual profiles and invite colleagues and external networks to contribute to giving campaigns.

Organizing community outreach opportunities from the office and giving real-time feedback for volunteer opportunities is a big plus for your business. It not only makes giving exciting but also more engaging for all participants. One way or another, employee engagement is impacted when you bring together a single cause under one integrated platform.

Tell Your Story

While most businesses rely on impact reports to gauge their community outreach efforts at the end of the year, taking a more proactive approach to storytelling is more impactful among employees. Who did you help? How did you make a difference? Allowing employees to answer such questions and share these stories and messages will encourage volunteer participation and employee engagement.

A recent survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management notes that 99% of HR managers worldwide anticipate that employee engagement will continue to be a critical strategic challenge, but embracing some of these steps can help businesses improve employee engagement levels. Building trusting relationships in the workplace and through outreach programs goes a long way to ensuring communication remains open and real.