10 Benefits of Volunteering for Your Staff
Volunteering is a great way to create a strong company culture, which in turn will help you attract and retain top talent. A little time spent helping others could quickly make your employees more engaged – and inspired. Here are 10 great benefits of volunteering that will inspire you and and your staff to get started!
1. Enhances teamwork skills for employees
Teamwork skills are important when it comes to problems that need to be solved collectively. In fact, not everyone can fulfill group tasks with a collaborative and constructive attitude.
Teamwork skills enable employees to be more cooperative and inspirational towards each other. Employees have opportunities to practice essential skills that make teamwork successful such as communication, problem-solving, conflict resolution, etc.
2. Creates networking opportunities
Volunteering gives staff a chance to encounter people from all walks of life. And through those interactions, staff may come across valuable networking opportunities.
Doing charity work not only involves network expansion, but also gives employees a chance to practice their relationship development skills.
Your employees may already do a good job in their everyday tasks, but that doesn’t mean they should stop there. By volunteering, they’re exposed to different challenges, thereby learning skills they’ve never experienced before.
You can create opportunities that help staff unleash their hidden talents—something you can’t realize through their daily work tasks. Let them organize and plan a volunteering day, calculate budgets for a volunteering activity, hold games for the orphans, etc.
Your employees may feel surprised at what they’re capable of, and eventually become more confident in themselves. This will motivate them to work better and strive harder.
4. Connects people
Although humans rely on each other to survive, the emergence of commercialization has damaged the way people connect and socialize in the modern society. The distance between people appears and gradually becomes larger.
Volunteering activities bring participants closer together by a mutual purpose—building a better society. They also strengthen your ties to the community and broaden your support network, exposing you and your employees to organizations or individuals who share the same interests, and even resources that are helpful to your business’ growth.
This is one of the greatest benefits of volunteering—you never know what it can bring, or who it’ll connect you to.
5. Betters employees’ health
The health and lifestyle of employees influence largely how they work, as well as their productivity. That’s why many businesses worldwide use different strategies to make their employees healthier, inside and out.
One of the benefits of volunteering is increasing employees’ physical and mental health. Studies show that people who do volunteering are healthier and happier than others. They also have a lower mortality rate than those who don’t participate in volunteering activities.
Volunteering encourages sedentary people to be more physically active. Plus, it reduces stress and improves your staff’s mental health. Volunteering activities motivate your employees to pursue healthier habits and lifestyles. In turn, productivity, loyalty, and attitude at work will become better.
6. Gives a sense of fun and fulfillment
Volunteering is an inspiring yet easy way to explore your interests and passion. It allows you and your employees to get away from the bustling life every day at work, which is full of day-to-day routine, repetitive tasks, and boredom.
Through valuable experience gained from doing good deeds, your staff can boost their creativity, morale, and vision that are helpful for their work and personal life. Plus, many people have taken up volunteering as a hobby outside of work because helping the underprivileged gives them a sense of fulfillment.
7. Gathers more life experience
Charity work helps participants gain experience that they’ve never had before. Meeting new people, traveling to new places, establishing new skills such as public speaking, budget management, or event organization are things that volunteering will introduce to your staff.
Whether it’s a chance to discover one’s capacity or broaden one’s experience, volunteering opens doors for your employees to step into new areas and extend their circles.
8. Increases employees’ trust in your company
Staff want to work for an organization that has a heart. Volunteer service at your organization can have a direct impact on your workplace culture and employees’ trust!
When you decide to give back, you show that your business supports good deeds. This builds trust in your employees that they’re working for a company that strive for meaningful causes. When employees’ trust are strengthened, they’re much likely to contribute more to your business.
9. Improves business image
One of the major benefits of volunteering is that it shows the values of your business. Prospective consumers are likely to consider your team’s charitable ethos when deciding whether or not to purchase your products or subscribe to your services.
Many businesses see volunteering as an opportunity to increase brand awareness and build their image, by eliciting positive feelings from customers, investors, or other stakeholders.
10. Increases positivity and confidence
Helping people in need gives us a deeper sense of meaning, thereby distracting us from negative thoughts. We can be more grateful for what we have in our lives through observing others’. We gain a sense of accomplishment by doing good for others and the community.
The better employees feel about themselves, the more likely tney are to have a positive view of their life and future goals. What’s more, volunteering means that they’re expanding their horizons and connecting themselves with others. This way your employees can feel more positive and confident towards what they’re doing.
Now it’s time to organize volunteering activities for your business
In a world where companies and employees only think of their own gain and little else, the benefits of volunteering can make a huge difference.
Giving back is important for your staff both personally and professionally, ultimately improving both the workplace, company morale, and overall employee engagement.
Volunteering also improves the wellbeing of your staff, helping them meet new people, form more trusting relationships with each other and improve team-building.
So, are you ready to hold some volunteering activities for your business and ask your staff to join?
Let’s do this thing.
