Employee views on corporate volunteering programmes

Employee volunteering in South Africa has been growing, with most large companies now having programmes in place, the Covid-19 pandemic notwithstanding. In fact, virtual volunteering has proved an important lever for retaining a sense of connection and shared purpose during times of crisis. This year, for the first time and in partnership with employee volunteering platform forgood, Trialogue conducted research into employee participation in, and perceptions of, company volunteering programmes.

Profile of respondents

Research with employees was conducted in June 2021 using the online survey
tool Qualtrics. The survey was sent to employees from eight companies registered on the forgood platform. Respondents were asked about their volunteering activities in 2020.

• There were 493 respondents from eight companies, with the highest numbers from Standard Bank (24%) and Liberty/ Stanlib (20%).
• The largest category of respondents by job level was employees below management level (40% of the sample), followed by mid-level managers (26%).
• Over two-thirds (68%) of the sample were female and the majority (81%) were between the ages of 31 and 60 years.
• Over three-quarters of respondents (77%) had not volunteered in 2020.

Non-volunteers

Most respondents (77%) had not volunteered in 2020. The most cited reason for not volunteering in 2020 was the Covid-19 lockdown and requirement for social distancing (59% of non- volunteers). Following this were lack of time to volunteer (23%) and lack of awareness about employee volunteering initiatives (23%).

Previous volunteering

• Just over half of respondents (51%) who had not volunteered in 2020 indicated that they had volunteered before this year, with 40% of this sub-set having volunteered on average once a year and 32% having volunteered two to six times a year prior to the onset of the pandemic.
• Of the respondents who had volunteered prior to 2020, 35% indicated that they had volunteered in 2019, while 42% had last volunteered between one and three years ago.
• Respondents’ top motivations for volunteering in the past were personal: to give something back to their community/country (90%), to support a cause that they care about (65%), and to learn more about their community (33%). Only 2% included recognition from their employer as a motivation, although 14% cited interacting with colleagues outside of the workplace as a motivation.

Future volunteering

• Nine out of ten respondents who had not volunteered in 2020 indicated that they were planning to volunteer in the future, with almost half of these (49%) saying they plan to volunteer in 2021. Another 49% said they plan to volunteer in one to three years’ time.
• Half of the respondents said that easing of lockdown and control of the pandemic would make them switch from not volunteering in 2020 to volunteering in the future. Interestingly, 24% claimed that time off from work
  to participate in volunteering initiatives would motivate them to volunteer, although only 1% included that as a reason for previous volunteering.
• Although registered on their company’s volunteering platform, 15% of non- volunteers said that nothing would motivate them to volunteer in the future.

 Volunteers

Just under a quarter of all respondents (23%) had volunteered in 2020. The proportion of females who volunteered in 2020 was greater than men (24% of females had volunteered, compared to 21% of men). Employees between the ages of 51 and 60 years were the most likely to have volunteered (30%), while those aged 18 to 25 years were the least likely to have volunteered, with only 12% of them having done so.

Senior staff were more likely to have volunteered in 2020, with 53% of top management and executives having done so, compared to 14% of employees or non-management staff and 18% of junior management staff.

The motivations of those who volunteered were the same as for those that had volunteered previously: to give something back to their community/country (93%), to support a cause that they cared about (68%), and to learn more about the needs in their community (29%). Only 11% of respondents cited a company-related reason such as the opportunity to interact with colleagues (6%), recognition from their employer (4%), and time off from work (1%).

Volunteering during 2020

• Respondents were most likely to have volunteered without company support (35%). One-third of respondents (33%) participated in company-organised group volunteering initiatives, followed by individual volunteering facilitated by their employer (29%).
• Over a third of respondents (39%) volunteered two to six times during 2020, followed by 32% of respondents who had volunteered once in the year.
• The most common type of volunteering in 2020 was time spent working with the end beneficiaries of an NPO (42%), followed by time spent providing other services to an NPO or charity (35%).
• However, there appears to be a mismatch between the types of activities that volunteer respondents were involved in and the types of activities that they would most like to be involved in. Respondents would most like to be involved in manual labour for NPOs (56%), followed by volunteering time as a board member of an NPO or charity (46%), while only 17% and 11% respectively were involved in these activities. Similarly, a high percentage of respondents showed interest in providing fundraising assistance (43%) and professional services (43%) to NPOs, but only 27% and 11% of volunteers respectively participated in these activities in 2020.

Causes supported

• Social and community development (63%) and education (61%) were the most popular causes for employees during 2020. This mirrors support from companies which is focused predominantly on these two sectors.
• Religious causes and animal welfare were both supported by more than 10% of employee respondents, despite being unpopular causes for companies.
• Most respondents (88%) supported between one and three organisations/ causes during 2020.
• Organisations to support were most commonly identified through the company’s employee volunteering platform/website (46%) or personal/ family involvement with an organisation (45%).
• The top criteria for selecting organisations to volunteer with were the organisation’s alignment with the respondents’ interests (70%) and the specific need to which the organisation responds (61%). Volunteers also considered the organisation’s proximity to home/work (39%) and, to a lesser extent, the proven impact of the organisation (29%).

Views on company volunteering programmes

• Two-thirds of volunteers in 2020 (65%) strongly agreed that a comprehensive employee volunteering programme is an important component of good corporate citizenship. Furthermore, nine out of ten volunteers (90%) said that their company’s commitment to the community made them proud to work at the company.
• Almost a third (32%) of employees had considered their company’s employee volunteering programme when deciding to join the company, while an equal proportion (32%) said this had not been a consideration, and 37% were unsure.
• Volunteering has a positive impact on skills with 62% of volunteers agreeing that they had developed key skills to apply in their jobs through volunteering.
• Volunteers felt that their volunteering made a positive difference to the organisations and beneficiaries they worked with (93%).
• Volunteers had a very positive view of their companies, with over 92% agreeing that they would recommend the company as a good place to work and that they would recommend its products and services.
• Respondents’ most common recommendations for improving their company’s employee volunteering programmes included that companies need to improve awareness of their volunteering programmes, provide more volunteering opportunities, and enable employees to select their own causes and communities to support.

This article was first published in the Trialogue Business in Society Handbook 2021.