Mobilizing Employees to Do Good

Mobilizing employees to participate in your company-wide or global CSR program is no small feat. In fact, without the proper steps in place, you may find yourself struggling with employee engagement and stakeholder buy-in, hitting your benchmarks and putting an impactful and sustainable program into place.

tips for mobilizing employees

Partner With Experts

You could attempt to create, implement and refine your company’s corporate citizenship program, or you could team up with experts who know the landscape, the challenges and the solutions to get you to your goals faster and more effectively. The benefits of working with partners include – laying out a feasible, strategic CSR program and sharing tools and templates, while partnering with nonprofits will help you mobilize employees and evaluate the impact on communities.

Start With Strategy

Understanding the communities you seek to serve is a crucial part of this process, and key insights from a nonprofit partner can help ensure that you make the most with your impact. After all, if your CSR efforts are only serving the needs of your company or your program goals, you’re missing the “why” behind the work you’re doing.

Create a CSR strategy that includes goals and smaller steps and benchmarks within those goals. Measuring these tangible elements of your CSR plan will help you make further strategic, data-driven decisions about your program in the future.

“More than C-Suite and senior leadership, a company’s middle managers are often best positioned to ensure that a company’s social impact work is felt by employees and is truly being experienced as a part of a company’s values and priorities. Spending time onboarding, updating and incentivizing your middle managers around the company’s social impact work is a critical strategy to take your purpose work to the next level.”

— Christine Schoppe, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer

Get Internal Buy-in From Senior Leaders & Fellow Employees

Your employee volunteer program should meet the needs of your internal team members, whether they be many or few. You’ll want to ensure that you can get the buy-in and participation from your employees by encouraging them to contribute to causes they’re already passionate about, allowing for skill-building and leadership development, and supporting a reasonable work-life balance throughout.

Put Recognition Programs in Place

Without recognition, you may find that your employee engagement program suffers in participation or enthusiasm. A partner, experienced in building corporate citizenship programs, can help you with employee recognition ideas that work for your team and your organization.

These don’t necessarily have to be grand gestures – although they can be. If you’re running a small business or managing a small team, there are still plenty of ways to ensure your employees feel seen and valued for their efforts.

“We all know that what is celebrated is replicated, which is exactly why recognizing and celebrating your volunteers is key to inspiring other employees to get involved. A volunteer recognition strategy is a path to communicating impact, boosting participation, shining a spotlight on causes, and reinforcing your company’s commitment to community.”

— Katie Stearns, Chief Global Corporate Solutions Officer

Ready to Get Started?

If you’re looking for a knowledgeable and experienced partner to start or refine your corporate citizenship program, contact Points of Light’s Corporate Services & Solutions team. We’re here to provide you with best-in-class tools, frameworks and customized support to reach your goals and provide maximum impact to the communities you serve.