AbbVie engages in a number of community programmes to support this goal such as their Back to School for STEM programme, SEEK programme (delivery of science experiments in schools) and sponsorship of IT Sligo’s Science Festival.
Category: Employee Volunteering
Team Impact Day – EA Gives Back at St.Michael’s Boys National School in Mervue, Galway
EA Gives Back is an all-day employee community impact experience, focusing on giving back and helping communities thrive. EA Gives Back Global Tour 2019 saw EA engage 892 employee volunteers from their studios in Austin, Montreal, Galway, Bucharest, and Shanghai, who dedicated over 5,600 hours of their time to make a positive impact in their local communities.
Team Impact Day: Roche at Finglas Garden
Check out how Roche Pharmaceuticals and their employee volunteers transformed a community garden in Finglas on a beautiful sunny summer’s day.
New 50-company study reveals radical changes in Employee Community Engagement
The COVID-19 pandemic has generated enormous pressures and new needs in society. It has created new demands on community organisations and businesses who are committed to positive social and environmental impact. It has also raised new challenges and added complexity to the relationships between community organisations and businesses and how they work together. July through September 2020, Volunteer Ireland, in collaboration with Volunteer Canada, undertook a study with 50 Canadian and Irish companies to create a snapshot of the effects of the pandemic on employee community engagement. Volunteer Canada’s Elizabeth Dove gives us a taste of what to expect from the report.
Employee community engagement is defined as company-supported activities undertaken by employees to make a positive impact on social or environmental issues. Examples include volunteering, donating, learning activities, civic action, use of social media, responsible purchasing or waste disposal. At some companies, employee community engagement is part of a larger corporate community engagement programme which engages other company stakeholders, such as retirees, employee family members, vendors, suppliers, contractors, clients or customers.
Findings indicate that companies are looking for creative solutions to continue their employee community engagement activities during the pandemic. Along with assisting the cause being supported, these activities also benefit employee well-being. With a priority on the health and safety of employees, there is a high demand for virtual volunteering opportunities however, at the moment, community organisations struggle to meet the demand for these virtual opportunities. There has an increased emphasis on employee-led activities, yet at the same time some companies struggle to engage employees , while others are having trouble getting a clear picture of how employees are giving back. Looking ahead, companies are planning to increase emphasis on skills-based volunteering and on opportunities for employees to learn about community issues and the non-profits addressing them as part of their community engagement program offering.
Read the full report – Effects of The Pandemic on Employee Community Engagement.
People helping people – LinkedIn’s most powerful tool
Eamonn Fitzgerald is LinkedIn for Good Manager (EMEA) based at LinkedIn’s Dublin Office. He talks to us about the importance of employee volunteering within the LinkedIn community.
When I joined the LinkedIn for Good team back in 2016, I was excited at the prospect of working for a company that had such an ingrained culture of helping others. Creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce – that’s our mantra, in fact, it’s LinkedIn’s vision statement. That means that the goal isn’t just the focus of the LinkedIn for Good team, but it’s what every employee at LinkedIn has committed to pursuing.
Now while we know that talent is distributed equally, access to opportunity is not. Individuals from certain communities, and of specific backgrounds, face unique hurdles to economic opportunity. That context, that reality, informs our work as the social impact arm of LinkedIn. How can we leverage our core assets to remove these hurdles, empowering all individuals to connect to opportunity?
When we talk about core assets, we’re talking about more than just money. In fact, ask any member of my team what our most powerful asset is – grant donations are probably pretty far down that list. The real game-changer is our people. That’s why we place LinkedIn employees, and LinkedIn members, at the centre of everything we do. In fact, we have three distinct channels that unlock the power of the volunteer.
1 – Empowering our employees to pursue their passions:
At LinkedIn we provide space for our employees to pursue their own passions, and to engage with the causes they care about. Late last year we launched a new internal employee social impact platform called LinkedIn Gives – a place for employees to donate, fundraise, and volunteer with any nonprofits they believed in. This platform empowers our employees to make a difference in whatever way they see fit, ensuring that we have an ability to track employee volunteer hours and contributions across all 30+ LinkedIn locations around the world.
Allowing some of our employee volunteers to identify their own opportunities is an important feature of our overall volunteer strategy, often acting as a great first point of contact between LIFG and a new employee. Once our employee volunteers become more comfortable with the concept of volunteering, we’re then able to direct them to more high-skill or strategic volunteering opportunities with our flagship nonprofit partners, where they can make use of their deep knowledge of our platform to positively impact people’s lives.
2 – Connecting our employees to the right partners:
While we might be the experts on all things LinkedIn, we accept that we aren’t always the experts on the unique employment challenges faced by some. That’s why we’re committed to a cross-sector partnership model, collaborating with NGOs that are already successfully solving these problems, and that would be able to leverage the time and talent of our employee volunteers. One of our strongest partners in Ireland is Jobcare – an NGO that has helped thousands of jobseekers escape the trap of unemployment over the past 25 years.
Partners like Jobcare are the perfect fit for LinkedIn Coaches, our structured employee volunteer programme that connects participants to mentors, jobs and networks. To date this partnership has seen us reach almost 1,000 jobseekers through a variety of programs and supports. These include bi-monthly training workshops in our EMEA headquarters in Dublin, working with around 60 jobseekers per session to teach them all about leveraging LinkedIn for their job search. In addition, our employees offer mock interview trainings and staff advisory stations at Jobcare’s regular networking events. Allowing our employees to find the volunteering opportunity that appeals most to them and adds genuine value to the participants themselves.
3 – Inviting our members on the journey:
At LinkedIn, when we talk about volunteering, we don’t just think about our employees. At our core, we’re a community of more than 560 million members, all of whom pursue their own version of success. However, they also want to help others achieve that goal too. More than 41 million LinkedIn members have proudly listed their past volunteering experiences on their LinkedIn profiles. This isn’t just to brag, it’s known to positively increase their chances of landing that next job. 27% of jobseekers are more likely to be hired, when unemployed, if they volunteer.
In addition, over 10 million LinkedIn members who have proactively signalled their interest in finding volunteering, board service, or mentoring opportunities on our platform. Our Volunteer Marketplace serves up skilled volunteer opportunities to our members across Ireland, France, the United Kingdom and Canada. In 2017 we connected more than 388,000 members to volunteer opportunities around the world. Our partnership with Volunteer Ireland has allowed us to share thousands of local volunteering roles with our members.
The long and short of it is that no matter your product, no matter your resources, people remain the key ingredient to successful corporate social impact programs worldwide. Employee volunteers can add genuine value to the right partners when given the chance, and organisations like Volunteer Ireland help companies like LinkedIn to mobilise our users at scale. We hope you’ll reflect on the ways that you might get involved with local organisations or through your own corporate social impact programmes this National Volunteering Week.
Corporate volunteering – It’s more than just painting a wall
This month’s blog is brought to you by Terri O’Brien, Corporate and Programmes Manager at Volunteer Ireland. Terri manages Volunteer Ireland’s Team Impact Days service and advises companies on their employee volunteer programme.
In my line of work, people often ask ‘what’s the point of corporate volunteering, when all they do is paint the same wall over and over again?‘ All I can think is – they have this wrong, employee volunteering is about so much more than that. The idea of painting the same wall or doing the same job over and over again is a common misconception when it comes to employee volunteering. That would be a waste of time for everyone involved!
In order to ensure employee volunteering is worthwhile and meaningful, for both the charity and the volunteer, it is the responsibility of charities, community groups and volunteer development organisations such as Volunteer Ireland and Volunteer Centres to ensure certain systems are in place. For instance, the employee volunteer project or progamme should support a clear and identified need in the organisation thereby having a positive impact on the charity – its premises, staff, and/or service-users.
Expectations, tasks, activities, supplies, materials and budgets should be clearly agreed at the outset. Employee volunteer programmes tend to be most successful when there is a distinct beginning and end point to the programme. In addition, there should be a dedicated team leader (either internal or external) to support, guide and motivate volunteers on the day and to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Equally, there is a responsibility on companies to meet the real needs that are out there in our communities. My advice is to think about the impact you want to have. Is it just about a day out for your employees or do you really want to make a difference to those in your wider community?
Remember, if you want to do something meaningful which has real impact then chances are you will need to provide a budget. The reality is small community groups and charities do not have the money to purchase project supplies and materials such as paint and plants or to provide lunch for your team.
Some large charities may have the resources to fund these projects but small community groups and organisations, particularly in the most socially disadvantaged parts of the country, are working on a shoestring with limited resources.
It’s important to take into account that while it seems like volunteering is free, charities invest significant time liaising with companies, planning employee volunteer events and managing the volunteer day itself. It is best practice for companies to provide additional financial support for supplies such as: indoor or outdoor furniture, shelving, additional plants or even getting a small contractor to do an essential job that only a skilled tradesperson can do.
Providing additional budget is about ensuring the success of the project and generating maximum impact so that your employees can take pride in a job well done and feel more motivated when they return to work.
So my message to charities is, don’t ask a company to paint the same wall again and again but rather ask them to work on a real and identified need that will positively impact your organisation. And for companies, think about where and how you can have maximum impact in the surrounding community, be sure to make a budget available and never assume that employee volunteering is free.