Companies4Good
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Kate_NFG
By Kate Olsen
Employment branding via social impact is here to stay. More and more, companies are realizing the power of community investment and cause programs to enhance employee loyalty and attract quality new hires. Here are 3 trends shaping employee engagement programs in 2013:
Charity Rewards
Showing your employees your company cares about social impact is just the first step. The bigger benefit for your employment brand is showing your employees you care about what they care about. It’s all about enabling the ‘Helper’s High’ – a verified chemical reaction in the brain causing a feeling of euphoria after doing good. When your company enables that feeling in your employees, they associate their passion for a cause or doing good with your company.
(Charity rewards include pre-paid donations in the form of charity gift cards, ‘dollars for doers’ volunteer incentives and matching grants to charities selected by employees.)
Example:
Liquidnet DoubleDown matches the personal contributions by employees of money, volunteer time and fundraising efforts to worthy causes.
Social Ambassadors
It’s easy to recruit employees who are already active in the community to join your company’s cause programs. But how do you get the next wave of employees to sign up? And the next? That’s when social proof and storytelling come in to play. The best ambassadors for your cause portfolio are the employees actively engaged in your programs. Equip those employees to tell their personal story about why they care, how they help and what it means to be able to do it alongside other employees. When others hear the passion and see the powerful impact results, they will be clamoring to be a part of your company’s do-gooding efforts.
Example:
CSR@Intel blog features a wide variety of Intel employees writing about their experience of corporate responsibility
Micro Actions
When it comes to social actions, bigger isn’t always better. While small actions for good are often brushed aside as ‘slacktivist’ slough, there is much to admire about micro do-gooding. Research from the Georgetown University Center for Social Impact Communication and Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide proves that people who engage in micro actions for good are more likely to invest their time and efforts in social impact projects. Micro social actions can be 1) gateway opportunities to engage employees in cause without overwhelming them by a big upfront commitment or 2) activities to complement other offline community commitments or habitual charitable giving.
Example:
AT&T's Do One Thing (DOT) program encourages employees to pick one change they can make that will have a positive impact on themselves, their community and/or the company. DOT is a perfect complement to the company’s consumer facing micro action campaign on Causes.com – Connect for Good – which encourages consumers to take pledges, watch videos and perform other discreet actions to unlock donations to causes important to AT&T.
