Enhancing your employer brand starts in the community. Employees enjoy working for companies that support their community.
Showing your company cares about community involvement includes providing opportunities to volunteer during work hours. These opportunities support employee engagement, performance, and productivity. The results include better job satisfaction, higher employee morale, and greater attraction and retention rates. These factors help strengthen your bottom line.
Discover why enhancing your employer brand starts in the community and methods to increase involvement.
Elevate Your Employer Brand
Companies that offer paid days for volunteerism enhance their employer brand perception. Participating in community organizations and events shows your organization’s dedication to giving back to the local area. As a result, more job seekers are likely to seek long-term employment with your company.
Cultivate a Sense of Purpose
Donating time and money to community organizations and events helps employees develop a sense of purpose at work. This commitment to help improve society lets employees contribute to outcomes that elevate community members’ quality of life. As a result, these employees tend to have a strong sense of belonging at work.
Support Employees’ Mental Health
Employees who are encouraged to help others typically experience positive mental health. For instance, employees who participate in community events usually feel a sense of belonging that minimizes loneliness and isolation. Also, volunteering with local nonprofit organizations helps reduce stress.
As a result, employees who volunteer tend to be happy at work. They also often offer to help colleagues and coworkers to provide additional value to your organization.
Increase Employee Referrals
Organizations that encourage volunteerism in the community tend to receive great numbers of employee referrals. Most employees appreciate company-sponsored opportunities to give back to the local area. As a result, many employees share job openings with members of their network.
Employee referrals typically blend with company culture, begin producing quickly, and remain loyal to your organization. These factors help enhance your employer brand.
Encourage Teams to Volunteer
Support managers in organizing paid work days for their teams to volunteer with a local organization or event. The team members should decide which causes they want to support. This approach empowers employees to lead your company’s community involvement in socially responsible behavior.
Offer Paid Days for Volunteerism
Employees who receive paid days to volunteer in the community enhance their relationship-building, communication, and collaboration skills. These employees can transfer their skills to the workplace for stronger team cohesion and a more attractive company culture. The results enhance your employer brand.
Donate to Community Organizations Chosen by Employees
Let each employee annually choose which nonprofit organization receives a donation in their honor. Helping employees support the causes that mean the most to them encourages engagement and long-term retention.
Implement an Employee Giving Program
Create a program that lets employees donate to community organizations and events. The program might include payroll deductions, fundraising, crowdfunding, or in-kind giving.
Human Resources can start with one giving program to see how many employees participate. For instance, payroll deduction is an easy, cost-effective method for employees to give to local organizations and activities.
Employees can commit to a certain amount to be donated monthly. Donations made through this convenient, financially manageable process typically are tax-deductible, making them even more attractive.
Emphasize Your Company’s Social Responsibility Activities
Share your organization’s community involvement on your website and social media pages, during interviews, and through other company promotions. Employees want to work for organizations that contribute to the local area and serve the greater good.
Consider offering opportunities for employees to volunteer through fundraising, organizing food or clothing drives, or planting trees to beautify public spaces. These activities enhance your employer brand.
Vector Technical’s Community Involvement
Vector Technical provided three presentations at the Alliance for Working Together Foundation (AWT) in Mentor, Ohio, between October 2023 and February 2024. The nonprofit organization’s membership includes more than 500 manufacturing companies, community organizations, and school members focused on promoting manufacturing careers.
Our presentations included:
- A two-part, 2-day presentation on resume preparation and interview etiquette for candidates reentering the workforce through the AWT machining class.
- A daylong presentation on resume and interview preparation for Perry and Fairport High School students sponsored by AWT.
- A daylong resume preparation and interview etiquette presentation for candidates reentering the workforce through the AWT machining class.
We also provided a presentation on resume writing and interview preparation that was free to the public in February 2024. The event was sponsored by and held at the Madison Public Library in Lake County, Ohio.
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