Astonishing Volunteer Management Data

At AngelPoints, we are continually leveraging our technology platform’s usage data to increase participation in employee volunteer programs (EVPs), sustainability initiatives, and employee giving/disaster response campaigns. One figure that was recently shared internally is how much of an impact using the volunteer event promotion tools has on event participation.

Over 87,000 events created through AngelPoints Enterprise Volunteer Solution (EVS) were analyzed, and it was determined that when a company creates an event without using the event promotion tools available in EVS, 52.1% of the events have participants. In contrast, when a company uses the event promotion functionality of AngelPoints EVS, the participation figure skyrockets to 94.5%. The beauty of the AngelPoints event management tool is that it allows for easy segmentation, deep customization, and powerful deliverability to make sure the event promotion efforts are maximized without requiring a lot of input from the system manager.

This is a great reminder for everyone running an EVP, regardless of what technology you use to manage it: make sure to understand what your technology is capable of. In addition, consider the importance of usability; the easier your technology is to use, the more it will be used, and the more effective your volunteer programs will be. Lastly, when promoting a volunteer event, make sure you understand how to get the right message in front of the right people at the right time.

Top 3 Strategies for Sustainability Employee Engagement

Incorporating sustainability in business strategy is a continually evolving topic. Not long ago, most would consider sustainability as a topic primarily suited for companies looking to reduce waste in their production process. More recently, a lot of attention has been placed on reducing waste within a company’s supply chain. Today, the vision for incorporating sustainability into business strategy has expanded even wider, and is now applicable to businesses of all types and sizes. The new frontier in sustainability is engaging employees in sustainability, and that’s where HR professionals come in.

There have been good and bad approaches to engaging employees with sustainability, so before we get into all the great ways HR leaders are tackling this new frontier, I have a word of caution. While it is great to encourage your employees to take actions that save company resources, and promote healthy and sustainable living, credit must be given to the employees. As soon as a company neglects to give credit to its employees for their sustainable behavior, the company opens itself up to being criticized for taking credit for their employees’ actions, and risks being accused of green-washing.

Now that the word of warning is out of the way, we can get into all the great ways HR leaders are engaging their employees in sustainability. Here are the top sustainability oriented employee engagement strategies and tactics we’ve seen employed by HR leaders:

1. Involving employees in the company’s commitment to become carbon neutral or reduce carbon emissions.
2. Engage employees in reducing waste, saving resources, and living healthy.
3. Rewarding employees who achieve goals that are aligned with the company’s sustainability strategy.

The first strategy is a good place to start for HR professionals looking to embrace sustainability employee engagement. Companies have gone about achieving this strategy by promoting walking, biking, and carpooling to work. Using a carbon calculator, you can measure how much initiatives to promote sustainable commuting are reducing the carbon footprint of your company. Tracking this on an ongoing basis can be tedious, but is certainly possible. Also, automated means for tracking and rewarding these sorts of behavior is available. The main benefit to your company is that this strategy aligns employee values with company values, which in turn helps turn employees into ambassadors for your brand.

The second strategy is where sustainability employee engagement starts to get sophisticated. Putting in place the right process and system to measure exactly how much employees are reducing waste, saving water, saving trees, and living healthy can do wonders for engaging employees. When an employee sees how their personal lifestyle changes impact the company, the environment, and themselves, it reinforces the connection employees have with your company, and empowers them to realize an internal paradigm shift to a more conscientious person. On the flip side, what doesn’t get measured doesn’t get recognized.

The third strategy is a great approach to layer on to a core sustainability employee engagement program. Some company’s have engaged their employees with sustainability focused contests, and have offered prizes for high achieving employees, departments, or offices. One approach is to have offices or departments competing against each other to see who can save the most trees, conserve the most water, lose the most weight, eliminate the most waste, or reduce their carbon footprint by the largest amount. Obviously, you’ll want the reward to have a sustainable focus, but other than that, most any reward will do. The real focus is on the process of behaving more sustainably in a fun and engaging way.

Engaging employees with sustainability initiatives is a powerful component of a sustainable business strategy. Sustainability employee engagement produces tangible results in the form of retention, recruitment, and creating brand value. This brand value is especially important in a new business landscape where turning employees and market influencers into brand ambassadors adds more value to a company than the old recruitment and retention tactics that worked well prior to the age of social media and transparency that we are now all a part of.

The most visionary HR and marketing leaders are already making employee engagement through sustainability a business imperative. The fact that they are able to do so at lower cost than their cohorts at large enterprises due to leveraging the same technology that large enterprises use, and employing their best practices, is all the more reason to adopt sustainability policies. A strong sustainability employee engagement program distinguishes their company from their competitors, both in the eyes of their current and future employees, and their customers. For additional reading on the topic, check out The Business Case for Environmental and Sustainability Employee Engagement.

Christine Arena Interviews Andy Mercy, Founder/CEO, AngelPoints

Earlier this month, Christine Arena for 3BL TV interviewed AngelPoints Founder and CEO, Andy Mercy:

Key take aways from the interview are:

• Employee engagement is the bridge between what companies say they want, and what they do in reality. An engaged workforce is the difference between a CSR and sustainability program that transforms a company, and a CSR and sustainability program that green washes a company.
• Companies can engage their employees better by increasing transparency and tying their community activities to their business strategy. Let employees connect the dots between how your company is serving its customers, and how it is serving its community.
• CSR and sustainability initiatives are intimately connected. Taking action to reduce your carbon footprint by biking to work will keep you healthy, which in turn lowers your company's healthcare costs.
• What doesn't get measured, doesn't get managed. Make sure you meticulously measure your volunteer programs, philanthropy activities, and sustainability initiatives so you know what impact you have on your company, community, and environment.

In the words of CEO of Campbells Soup, "to get it right in the marketplace, you need to first get it right in the workplace." To that end, he tracks two metrics to gauge success: share holder return and employee engagement. The term "employee engagement" is often used loosely, but in this case it is determined consistently from the Q12 Gallop Poll. If you want to measure success, you'll want to know how you can engage employees better. One sure fire way to do so is to increase transparency...there can't be a disconnect between what employees do day to day, and what green teams are involved in. Create activities to get employees involved in volunteering, and let the employees connect the dots between their activities volunteering and the broader company strategy.

Sustainability initiatives can go a long way in helping to engage employees. Broadly speaking, sustainability encompasses reducing your carbon footprint, conserving/preserving resources, health and wellness, and connecting with others. Make sure to clearly define the fact that volunteering is a way of connecting with others, and so is intrinsically connected to sustainability. For example, riding your bike to work reduces your carbon footprint, and is good for your health, which in turn lowers a company's health care costs. Another example is paper reduction through double sided printing and reducing the amount of material you print saves money across the organization, and is good for the environment as well.

What doesn't get measured doesn't get managed. Companies that embrace rigorous measurement have been able to achieve above and beyond an improvement in their department; they have achieved a transformation in their company and community. With an increase in the availability of measurement tools, employees across the board are being held accountable for measuring results. CSR and Sustainability teams have been granted some leniency in this regard, but that leniency will not last as CSR becomes a central part of a company's strategy. Make sure your company's CSR and sustainability programs are in good shape by being in open communication with members of your HR and Marketing teams. Make sure to explore all avenues to connect CSR and sustainability programs to improvements in retention, increased ability to attract top talent, and leadership development...your friends in HR will appreciate it. Also make sure to connect with your peers in marketing, since much of what you do can be leveraged for cause marketing efforts and PR.