Employee participation in the community involvement programme

Employee participation can offer numerous benefits to both the individual (through personal development, learning of new skills, developing inter-personal skills), the company (better motivated employees, more confident and aware employees) and the community (learning from working in partnership with your employees and sharing their professional skills, time and experience).

Each year, more and more companies are positively encouraging employees to become involved in the local communities in which they and often their families live. This can be done in several ways.

1. Preferential treatment - given to requests supported by employees, provided they comply with your business objectives and community strategy.

2. Launching a reward and recognition programme – which highlights and supports the achievements of employees in out of hours activities, e.g. sporting honours; leadership initiatives; commitment to an organization, e.g. school governor; academic support, e.g. encourage employees to become lecturers at a local college.

3. Awards presentations – asking employees to volunteer to represent your company as your ‘ambassador’ at presentation events.

4. Employee volunteering – actively encourage employees to gain personal development experience by volunteering their time and skills to a willing community organization.

5. Committee membership – develop employees through being your nominee on selected external committees, e.g. the local Education Business Partnership or Groundwork Trust. This will help their networking and understanding of how other organizations work.

However, to get involved, employees must understand your community policy and the opportunities available. Once again, communication is vital and should be on a repetitive ongoing basis, seeking every chance to promote the concept, from the company’s annual report and business plan to posters and ‘coffee machine discussions’. This awareness can then be stimulated by internal competitions featuring associated prizes based on the employees answering questions directly related to the community programme.

Why bother involving your employees?

1. It is a cliché but a company’s greatest asset should be its people. Participation in the community by employees can help to improve their motivation and pride in themselves as well as the company. This can result in direct business benefits of increased productivity, reduced sickness absence, more innovation, better developed communication skills, better understanding of your policy/objectives and how you compare to other companies/organizations.

2. Overall your employees will feel valued since they are empowered to participate and their opinions will be asked for and listened to, making a positive contribution. Furthermore it fosters a perception of a company which cares for its employees and supports its local community.

3. Ultimately the programme should be seen to dovetail into other human resource management initiatives, particularly training and development programmes, such as investors in people; total quality management; continuous improvement programmes; coaching; teamworking/team building and reward and recognition schemes.