The document summarizes a presentation about designing employee volunteering programs to increase engagement and performance. It discusses how volunteering that is work-related, skills-building, and career-enhancing can provide bigger boosts to engagement compared to volunteering done independently. Examples are provided of companies that integrated volunteering into employees' jobs in these impactful ways, such as by having IT staff mentor small business owners or hotel cleaners help prevent disease. The presentation argues that effective volunteering programs should make work more purposeful and that "job purposing" can deepen jobs' social impact to benefit both employees and society.

1. COMETOGETHER
VOLUNTEERMATCH SUMMIT
DECEMBER 1 & 2, 2015

2. COMETOGETHER
VOLUNTEERMATCH SUMMIT
DECEMBER 1 & 2, 2015
Bea Boccalandro, VeraWorks
A Radical Twist on Employee Volunteering:
Job Purposing

3. A Radical Twist on Employee Volunteering:
Job Purposing
December 1, 2015
Bea Boccalandro, President, VeraWorks
bea@veraworks.com 717-414-2885 www.veraworks.com @bboccalandro

4. 1. What does employee volunteering have to do with workplace
performance?
2. How can you design employee volunteering that supports
everyday managers?
3. Applying this to your work
4. Conclusion
Content
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5. Lower death!
Higher self-confidence
Fewer negative emotions
Higher productivity

6. Lower death!
(Buck Center for Research and Aging,
Berkeley University and Stanford University)
Higher self-confidence
(Published research in Child
Development)
Fewer negative emotions
(Altruism and Health: Perspectives from
Empirical Research by Stephen Post, ed. )
Workplace pro-social behavior will bring employees:
Higher productivity
(Babson College, Give and Take by Wharton’s Adam Grant)

7. Image: Frans de Waal

8. • Primatologist Frans De Waal puts it this way: “We are
group animals, who rely on each other, need each other,
and therefore [evolution has ensured we] take pleasure
in helping.”
• Our brains secrete endorphins when we are pro-social.
• Our affinity for societal contribution is primal, not
voluntary.
The “helper’s high” is physiological

9. Relationship between workplace volunteering
& employee engagement / morale

10. Peter F. Drucker
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11. 73%
Say job is
purposeful
74%
Say job is not
purposeful
Engaged employeesDisengaged employees
Source: Snyder, Deborah and Sean Burke, “Increasing Team member engagement in the nonprofit sector: How to engage employees for high
performance.” Accenture, 2013.

12. Lack of engagement costs the US $500
in lost productivity per year.
Source: Gallup, 2015.

13. The attitude and performance bounce resulting from
pro-social behavior is well established in academia
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14. Engaged employeesDisengaged employees
+ purpose =
Could it be this simple?
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15. Engaged employeesDisengaged employees
Sell technology solutions
+ purpose =

16. HP’s Eco Advocates
+

17. Engaged employeesDisengaged employees
Sell technology solutions
+ purpose =
+ help small businesses
be green
= over 10% higher
employee engagement
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18. Engaged employeesDisengaged employees
Clean hotel rooms
+ purpose =

19. Image: Caesars Entertainment
Image: Examiner
Image: Clean the World
Caesars Entertainment’s Clean the World
partnership

20. Engaged employeesDisengaged employees
Clean hotel rooms
+ purpose =
+ help stop children dying
from preventable disease
= significantly higher
employee engagement

21. Engaged employeesDisengaged employees
Developing products for
military
+ purpose =
+ Help veterans get jobs = significantly higher
employee engagement

22. Engaged employeesDisengaged employees
jobs + purpose
= 37% higher morale
= significantly higher
engagement
= significantly higher
engagement

23. Engaged employeesDisengaged employees
jobs + employee
volunteering
= over 10% higher
employee engagement
= significantly higher
employee engagement
= significantly higher
employee engagement

24. • The Corporate Executive Board Company found that every
employee who participated in employer community involvement adds
value to the company via increased employee engagement.
• A Rutgers University and Net Impact study found that 45 percent of
employees who have conducted community involvement through
their employment are very satisfied with their jobs, compared to 30
percent who haven't.
• A Deloitte survey revealed that millennials are twice as likely to be
very satisfied with the progression of their career when they have the
opportunity to conduct community involvement through their
employer.
• Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz credited employee volunteering as a
key element in the successful improvement of the company's
performance during its turnaround.
External evidence

25. • Think of ways you have seen volunteering increase
employee engagement, performance and wellbeing
• Share with your partner
• Take 2 minutes
Reflection exercise

26. How can you design employee
volunteering that best supports
employee engagement, performance
and retention?
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27. This is not traditional volunteering.

28. Data from HP: Who experienced the greatest lift in
engagement?
d. Sally
Directed $25 of HP funds
toward a “Matter to a
Million” program Kiva loan.
b. Brent
Used 16 of HP’s policy
of 4 hours / month
volunteer time off for
the volunteering he
chose to do,
independent of HP.
a. Melanie
Participated in
entrepreneur
mentoring program
and found that it
used and developed
her skills and
advanced her career.
c. Ken
Participated in two HP-
employee organized
extra-hands team
volunteer projects per
his manager’s
encouragement.
Go to the station with the employee you feel got the biggest
bounce in engagement from their community involvement.

29. a) Monetary giving
b) Volunteering independently of HP
c) Paid-time-off volunteering
a) Extra-hands HP volunteering
a) Team-based HP volunteering
b) Manager encouragement to
participate in HP volunteering
g) Skills-based HP volunteering
h) Skill-building / career-enhancing
volunteering
Data supporting lift in employee engagement?
No.
Brent and Sally
Yes, there is evidence of lift.
Ken
Yes, there is evidence of big lift.
Melanie
Note: Not all of the above have been tested for causality.

30. Job purposing is broadening a job’s social mission with the
opportunity to serve a societal cause.
It represents a high-impact form of team member community
involvement.
Job purposing: Deepen work via social good
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31. The community involvement that best “purposes the job” is:
1. Work native
Job purposing: Deepen work via social good

33. The community involvement that best “purposes the job” is “WE
GIVE”:
1. Work native
2. Evolving
3. Group Based
4. Impact Evident
5. Voluntary
6. Educational
Job purposing: Deepen work via social good
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34. Applying this to your work

35. World competition for a yacht!
(Or comparable prize, if out of stock)

36. • In your groups, discuss ways to have your employee
volunteering move towards Melanie’s experience
• Come up with two ideas to share with the large group
Group exercise

37. If, at first, the idea is not absurd, then there
is no hope for it.
Albert Einstein

38. • In your groups, discuss ways to have your employee
volunteering move towards Melanie’s experience
• Come up with one absurd idea to share with the large group
• Yacht awarded to the most absurd idea
• Take 5 minutes
Group exercise

39. Closing thoughts

40. “Work is about a search for… daily bread, for… cash…; in short, a
sort of… Monday through Friday sort of dying.”

41. “Work is about a search for daily purpose as well as daily bread, for
recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in
short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of
dying.”
Studs Terkel
Pulitzer Prize winning author of Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and
How They Feel About What They Do
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42. You can make childhood wishes come true.