Just the Facts: How Community Engagement Benefits Employees

Looking for some research and stats on the benefits of employee involvement in community engagement, citizenship and volunteering? Look no further! We’ve compiled some of our favorite pieces of research for you.

1. DELOITTE IMPACT SURVEY

The 2016 Deloitte Impact Survey was distributed online, and interviewed 2,506 respondents in 13 major metropolitan areas across the United States. Here are some examples of what you’ll find in it:

• 92% of respondents agree that volunteering improves employees’ broader professional skill sets.
• 92% of respondents agree that volunteering is an effective way to improve leadership skills.
• 80% of respondents said that active volunteers move more easily into leadership roles.

Deloitte’s 2011 Volunteer Impact Report covers some helpful stats on millennial employees:

• Twice as likely to rate their corporate culture as very positive, as compared to millennials who rarely or never volunteer (56% versus 28%).
• More likely to be very proud to work for their company (55% versus 36%).
• More likely to feel very loyal toward their company (52% versus 33%).
• Nearly twice as likely to be very satisfied with the progression of their career (37% versus 21%).
• More likely to be very satisfied with their employer (51% versus 32%).
• More likely to recommend their company to a friend (57% versus 46%).

You can find more Deloitte Research here.

2. BARCLAY’S BANK IMPACT EVALUATION

This study of Barclay’s Bank, conducted by The Institute for Volunteering Research, surveys 2,000 Barclay’s volunteers, 800 managers, and 800 staff who had not taken part in volunteering. Some of the key findings are:

• 68% of volunteers felt that their understanding of colleagues had increased as a result of employee volunteering, while 61% reported that their team-work skills had grown.
• 58% of managers reported that their staff worked better together after volunteering. Nearly half (49%) of managers saw employee volunteering as ‘very effective as a team-building exercise’, while a further 39% rated it as ‘quite effective’.
• Taking part in regular volunteering increases job satisfaction: the more times an employee has volunteered through Barclays the more likely it is that his or her job satisfaction has increased.
• More volunteers than non-volunteers would recommend Barclays as an employer (67% of volunteers compared with 58% of non-volunteers).
• Managers saw the greatest impacts on their staff in terms of increased communication and leadership skills: 61% reported that staff communication skills had improved; 56% felt that staff leadership skills had.

3. CECP 2018 GIVING IN NUMBERS

An in-depth analysis of corporate giving and employee engagement data from more than 300 of the world’s largest companies, Giving in Numbers is one of the most trusted sources to benchmark against in the CSR industry. At the time of writing this, the 2019 Giving in Numbers has not been released, but keep an eye out! In the meantime, they have some great previews up. Here are some highlights from the 2018 edition:

• More companies, in a three-year matched set, increased their measurement of societal outcomes and/or impacts of at least one grant: from 81% in 2015 to 84% in 2017. Most commonly, companies limited their outcome-measurement efforts on strategic programs. Companies that measured societal outcomes and/or impacts only on select grants managed more recipients and grants compared to those that measured societal outcomes and/or impacts across all grants.