Create or review your employee volunteer policy today!

As your team grows and more employees ask about your company’s social responsibility, it’s a great time to review your initiatives. Volunteering as teammates is awesome for employee engagement. Yet, without a volunteer policy, you may find it difficult to manage and coordinate. It’s very helpful to have a system in place to support & encourage your employees. 

In this post, we’ll chat about a few key guidelines in creating a successful volunteer program. We will go over the process of writing a volunteer policy. We will look at volunteer guidelines to include in your policy. Whether you have already launched a employee volunteer program or not, it’s a good time to review your initiatives and ensure success going forward.

What Is An Employee Volunteer Policy?

For quite some time now, companies are no longer solely focusing on creating wealth. Take the Business Roundtable, for example. Many of America’s leading CEOs signed the purpose of a Corporation in 2019, “that companies should deliver long-term value to all of their stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, the communities in which they operate, and shareholders.” Regardless of company size, employees want to lift up each other in our communities & around the world. Corporate-supported volunteering assists in this mentality. Focusing on giving back as part of your employee culture.

Keeping that in mind, you can think of the volunteer policy as a guideline that states roles and expectations of volunteers within your organization. This policy will help align volunteers with corporate social responsibility objectives. Further, by stating objectives, your leadership agrees to the purpose of this initiative. You want to connect leadership and employees through this policy. As with many things, if you write out the purpose and guidelines in an easy, concise manner, your will have a greater chance of success. 

Moreover, a good employee volunteer policy will make sure everyone is on the same page. Your team can encourage employees to volunteer in any manner or with any organization. The overall purpose of a volunteer policy is to provide this guidance and direction to your employee volunteers. Without a policy, volunteers may be unsure of what is expected of them and why their involvement is even needed.

What Should An Employee Volunteer Policy Include?

When creating a volunteer policy, you want to keep it short without missing any key information. Second, you want to highlight the key points. Attempt to make the policy easy to read. You want to keep the policy engaging to communicate the needed points. Finally, bonus points for formatting to a bullet-point summary at the top of the policy. This will help for quick referencing of the policy. Employees may come back to the policy after 6 months or initially reading it. 

Below, we’ll suggest items you can include. Hopefully these ideas will help you create your own volunteer policy. 

Introduction

The introduction helps set the tone for the whole policy. You want to relay the meaning of your employee volunteer program. In other words, why volunteering is important to your workplace. Mention how this importance relates to your team’s corporate social responsibility. Further, mentioning what a successful program looks like to your company. 

• Mission statement of your organization
• What your organization does and what CSR efforts you have
• What your hopes are for the volunteering scheme and how it will help CSR

Volunteer Sign-ups / Registration

In this section, we suggest adding more details. For example, who can volunteer. When can they volunteer. Do you have group volunteering opportunities? Will employees need background checks or specific skills? Putting in policies for all the types of employees and being inclusive as possible is a best practice. Include information such as:

• Where an employee should make a volunteer request
• Who / How to ask for a volunteer time off (VTO)
• What types of workers are eligible (part-time/contract/full-time)

Volunteer Training and Featured Nonprofits

This paragraph will help guide employees. First, how to find volunteer opportunities. Second, where any training or e-learning is located for certain volunteering. You want to help guide your employees with resources for how to be a great volunteer! Further, let your team know if you have an employee champion that is leading your employee volunteer program. Lastly, does your team have a software to help coordinate volunteering and VTO? This section can outline resources & where to find them. You can include:

• Featured Nonprofits 
• Featured Volunteer Opportunities
• Employee Volunteer Leaders
• Training or e-learning for volunteers
• Employee Volunteer Software

Guidelines and Expectations

Remember, clear expectations lead to successful programs! We suggest adding any extra details that would be helpful to clarify your purpose. Perhaps, you may have ideas for how volunteers should act when out in the community. 

• Parameters should be set for what kind of behavior leads to volunteer dismissal. 
• HR policies for employees
• Rules to follow when out volunteering
• Relevant state/city laws regarding policies

Conclusion

A good volunteering policy can make quite an impact for the success of your volunteer program. The above steps are the foundation of your volunteer policy. By implementing them you can get a head start on a well-written, functional policy. 

Looking for a quick holiday giving win? Consider adopting a family through a nonprofit. Check out our holiday blog post to learn more.

As a last point, if you’d like help coordinating your employee volunteer program, let us know! We’d be happy to help. You can reach out anytime: [email protected]!