The Power of Giving Back: Insights into Volunteering's Influence on Employee Engagement, Wellbeing, and Organisational Success

6 Mar

When it comes to engaging employees, promoting staff wellbeing, and boosting your bottom line, volunteering is a key strategy for success. In this article, we’re laying out key insights and statistics on volunteering's influence on employee engagement, wellbeing, and, ultimately, how this all contributes to organisational success. We’ll be covering:

We’ll be covering:

But before we get into it, let’s start with the basics, shall we?

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement has been a hot topic in recent years. So much so, new words and phrases have had to be invented to account for different levels of employee disengagement. Terms like “presenteeism” and “quiet quitting” have been introduced to popular discourse to describe just how disengaged some employees are.

Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2023 reported that 77% of employees aren’t engaged at work, with 59% of employees “quiet quitting” (disengaged) and 18% “loud quitting” (actively disengaged). Just 23% were engaged, meaning that they found their work meaningful and felt connected to their teams and organisations.

But does employee engagement really matter for your business?

Well, the short answer is yes. There are a couple of factors to consider here.

Employee engagement directly impacts your bottom line. Gallup estimates that low engagement costs the global economy $8 .8 trillion (US) and accounts for 9% of global GDP.
Engaged employees are happier and low engagement is related to higher stress. Staff engagement has 3.8 times as much influence on employee stress as work location, and we all know that happy employees means higher retention.

What is workplace wellbeing?

Let’s start right at the beginning. Staff wellness is all about employees’ physical, mental, and emotional health and wellbeing at work.

More than ever before, employers must take into account their teams’ wellbeing. This could mean taking simple steps towards stress prevention in the workplace, like improving recognition, flexibility, or feedback.

But does employee wellness matter for your organisational success?

The wellbeing of your people is absolutely essential to the success of your business, not just in terms of culture, but also in relation to your bottom line. Lost productivity as a result of two of the most common mental health problems, anxiety and depression, costs the global economy $1 trillion (US) each year.

And employers are starting to see just how valuable staff wellbeing is. Adecco's Disconnect to Reconnect survey showed that 74% of employers see the importance of employee wellbeing. But there’s still a long way to go, with 45% of employees saying they don’t think their companies provide adequate support.

Volunteering as a Tool to Increase Employee Engagement

All this means that improving internal engagement should be a top priority for businesses. That’s where corporate volunteering comes in.

Can volunteering increase employee engagement?

Many studies have shown that volunteer programmes boost employee engagement, productivity, and fulfilment.

According to the Boston School of Management’s 2023 Community Involvement Study, employee volunteering is a key driver of employee engagement. Of the companies that measured the connection, 91% found a positive correlation between employee volunteering and employee engagement scores.

And this doesn’t just relate to traditional, in-person team volunteering options. The study showed that virtual volunteer options have proved to be an effective option for teams working across numerous locations or schedules, with more than 80% of companies implementing a virtual volunteering programme.

The positive link between staff volunteering and engagement isn’t new. The connection has been proven time and time again by numerous studies over the course of years.

In 2013, for example, a University of Georgia study found that if people volunteered, they performed better on work tasks – even if they volunteered on their own time, not company time. And in 2010, United Healthcare found that 76% of those who volunteer through work reported more positive attitudes towards their employer.

So, we know for sure that staff volunteering has a positive effect on employee engagement, but what does this look like in practice?

How volunteering impacts team engagement in practice

OnHand’s corporate volunteering and social value case study with Softcat demonstrates how a modern, flexible approach to corporate volunteerism can boost engagement.

With 8 locations across the UK and over 1,000 employees, organising and tracking employee impact proved to be tricky for IT service provider Softcat. So, they partnered with OnHand, a fully flexible, on-demand employee volunteering app with remote and local volunteering options.

The partnership enabled Softcat to onboard 30% of staff in the first six months and record 200+ hours of impact. This engagement rate is more than double the average percentage uptake of paid volunteering time, which sits at just 14% according to the London Benchmarking Group.

The company’s CEO, Graeme Watt, knew that to improve employee engagement in volunteering, he would have to get stuck in.

Named #3 in Glassdoor’s Top CEO’s 2021 report and coming in closely behind the CEO’s of global giants BlackRock and Microsoft, Graeme demonstrated hands-on leadership in launching Softcat’s volunteering programme with OnHand. He was one of the first members of the team to volunteer, and he took the time to share his experience with his people.

Choosing how your people should engage in corporate volunteering is a key stage of the process. At Softcat, Greame had a clear (and huge) vision for creating social good.

To get started building your people’s commitment to positive impact, it can help to have a structured campaign.

OnHand’s Resolution Revolution, running throughout Q1 2024, highlights bite-sized tasks designed to boost employees’ commitment to doing good – for their communities, for the planet, and for themselves.

By promoting a campaign like this one, leaders can show their employees that they care about the world around them and the people they work with, ultimately boosting staff morale and engagement.

Volunteering as a Strategy in Workplace Wellbeing, Health, and Wellness Programmes

Employee wellness initiatives aim to support all these aspects of employee health, as well as work-life balance and job satisfaction.

Employers need to step up – and the data shows that they know it.

Wellable’s 2024 Employee Wellness Industry Trends Report shows that:

64% reported increased investment in employee wellness in 2023
45% of respondents expect even more investment in 2024

And where is all this investment going? For the 5th year in a row, mental health is projected to receive the highest level of investment. The report shows a whopping 91% of employers plan to increase in investment in employee mental health.

And it’s easy to see why. In today’s busy world, balancing work and life can be difficult for anyone – and an added challenge, like caring for a loved one as a workforce carer, can be enough to push an employee into ill mental health. Supporting your people with effective wellbeing support can make all the difference.

What makes a successful employee wellbeing programme?

A 2024 study exploring employee wellbeing outcomes in the UK showed that volunteering may be the single most effective way to boost employee wellness.

The study compared a range of wellness initiatives, including:

Volunteering
Mindfulness programmes
Resilience, energy, or stress management programmes
Financial well‐being programmes
Programmes and apps supporting healthy sleep
One-on-one mental health and wellbeing coaching

Out of all the wellness initiatives studied, volunteering proved to be a particularly effective method for improving employee wellness:

Volunteering had the highest participation rate of all programmes tested
Volunteering was the only type of intervention to suggest benefits for workers' wellbeing

Positive Habits for Employee Wellbeing: Volunteering, Sustainability, and Personal Wellness

Research shows that improving your wellbeing is all about incorporating positive changes into your routine. In other words, it’s about creating positive habits.

If you want your people to prioritise wellbeing (and subsequently improve productivity and retention), you must encourage and facilitate the creation of positive daily habits

Building new habits is hard, and it’s human nature to revert to your old ways, but incorporating more positive habits into your routine can have huge payoffs. Get the full low-down on habits, how they’re formed, and why they’re so important for maintaining wellbeing in our guide, The Science of Positive Habits.

How can employers empower their people to build positive habits?

With OnHand’s Habit Tracker, employees can sign up for a variety of wellbeing and climate-friendly pledges, and track their progress each day. And when they’ve completed the pledge, they’ll be rewarded with Hero points and real trees planted in their company forest.

Building a volunteering habit is one of the single most beneficial things a person can do for their wellbeing.

According to research by the NCVO:

77% of volunteers report better mental health and wellbeing
93% of volunteers said they enjoyed volunteering, and 90% felt they were making a difference
Those who volunteer through employer-supported volunteering report the same benefits as those doing other forms of volunteering (primarily around enjoyment and fulfilment)

And to maximise your wellbeing, it’s not just about volunteering - it’s about making sure volunteering is a regular habit. The NCVO found:

96% of frequent volunteers said they ‘enjoy it’ compared with 90% of occasional volunteers
and a similar pattern was seen for feeling like they made a difference (93% vs 85%) and feeling a sense of personal achievement (93% vs 88%)

To get more insight into how volunteering can revolutionise wellbeing, read our guide on how volunteering affects mental health.

Strategies for Engaging Your Team in Volunteering

It’s clear that volunteering is an effective method for boosting employee fulfilment, wellbeing, and productivity. But what’s the best way to get your team to volunteer?

Everyone wants to do good, but to get people to take action, try something new, and get involved, it’s essential to create a sense of urgency. Encouraging healthy competition is the best way to do this. By showing off who’s doing the most good, which teams are smashing it, and who’s lagging behind, you’ll create a sense of urgency about getting out there and doing good.

With OnHand, this is built in. When people take on a mission – whether that’s cleaning up their local park or pledging to make an eco-friendly lifestyle choice – they’ll earn Hero points. They can then see where they rank on the company leaderboard.

We recently revamped our Hero points system to make your people feel even more competitive about their social and eco impact. Once the new points system took off, we saw volunteering and climate action seriously spike among our staff.

To get the complete picture of how to engage your people in volunteering, with real examples of how these strategies have worked for companies like Domestic and General and Softcat, check out our 10 top tips to engage your team. But to get the ball rolling, take a look at 5 of our most successful strategies.

Start with these 5 steps to engage your team in volunteering:

Recognise your company’s volunteering champion of the month

Shout out the team member who’s saved the most CO2e, volunteered the most time, or made the biggest difference each month

Put prizes on the line

Incentives can make a huge difference to volunteering engagement. This could mean something big – like an electric bike – or something super simple – like cinema tickets, a donation to the winner’s favourite charity, or a voucher to go out for dinner.

Organise a company-wide volunteering day

It can be hard for teams to find the time to volunteer. One way to fix this is to ask the whole company to take the day off their usual work and volunteer instead.

Weekend volunteering = more holiday

It can be impossible to find the time to volunteer during work hours. Allowing employees to engage in corporate volunteering at the weekend and take those hours back as annual leave is a great way to incentivise doing good.

Lead by example

Seeing CEOs, upper management, and middle management get involved in volunteering is one of the single most effective ways to get your team to engage.

To make sure that your management team feels confident and empowered to create a culture of giving back, it’s vital to make sure they feel supported. Research by Future Forum shows that burnout among mid-level managers is worryingly high at 43%.

To successfully roll out a volunteering programme at your organisation, you’ll need to make sure your management team is on board. And to do this, you’ve got to take action to support them. Read our complete guide on how to support your management team.

The Sum-Up

Volunteering in the workplace can be transformatively powerful. The proven impact of volunteering on employee engagement, wellbeing, and organisational success shouldn’t be ignored at this time, as alarming statistics on employee disengagement underscore the critical need for proactive measures.

The correlation between employee engagement and business outcomes is undeniable. Gallup's findings, indicating that 77% of employees are disengaged, highlight the urgency for businesses to address this issue.

Engaged employees contribute to a healthier bottom line, with Gallup estimating that low engagement costs the global economy a staggering $8.8 trillion. Plus, the positive connection between employee engagement and reduced stress, demonstrated by a 3.8 times greater influence than work location, shows off the tangible benefits of cultivating a connected and engaged workforce.

The integration of volunteering into corporate culture emerges as a potent strategy. The Boston School of Management's study underscores that 91% of companies find a positive correlation between employee volunteering and engagement scores. And the Softcat and OnHand case study illustrates how a modern, flexible approach to corporate volunteering can yield exceptional results, blowing average participation rates out of the water.

Plus, volunteering stands out as a top tactic for employee wellness. In the evolving landscape of employee wellness initiatives, volunteering emerges as the most effective method, boasting clear benefits for workers' wellbeing. It aligns perfectly with the increasing focus on mental health, with a huge 91% of employers planning to increase investment in this area.

Creating positive habits through volunteering, supported by tools like OnHand's Habit Tracker, becomes a transformative approach. Research by the NCVO affirms that regular volunteering not only enhances mental health and wellbeing but also fosters a greater sense of personal achievement.

To harness the full potential of volunteering, organisations need to employ effective strategies for team engagement. Healthy competition, recognition programs, and leadership involvement are key ingredients to success – and proper support for management teams is key to ensuring engagement and participation in doing good across your teams.

In a nutshell, the integration of volunteering into the corporate fabric is a win-win solution, fostering employee engagement, wellbeing, and ultimately contributing to organisational success. Embracing this shift holds the promise of not only transforming places of work, but also creating a positive ripple effect that extends well beyond the confines of the office.