topic Re: Employee Volunteering - Enhancing business & social impact in Ask the Community

Employee Volunteering - Enhancing business & social impact

Bennett_43 — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 18:35:09 GMT

Alongside non-profit and government partners, we at Rosterfy (www.Rosterfy.com) are mission-focused on helping companies elevate their corporate philanthropy through employee volunteering and strengthen how they measure impact at both a business and societal level.

In recent research we’ve conducted, 73% of businesses told us they have a company‑wide ambition to increase the scale and impact of employee volunteering (with most of the remainder looking to at least maintain current levels). At the same time, the vast majority reported core challenges around the resources and infrastructure needed to manage initiatives at scale, maintain a strong employee experience, and clearly articulate ROI.

If this strikes a chord, I’d love to share the headline insights and patterns we have unearthed and understand the challenges and opportunities you see within your role. Please shoot a quick note to our project consultant at newman_andrew@outlook.com to chat further and find out more.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Re: Employee Volunteering - Enhancing business & social impact

Michelle Fifis — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 19:00:22 GMT

Thank you for sharing! Love this focus on elevating employee volunteering and measuring impact.

Would you be open to sharing 1-2 practical tips with the Pledge 1% community here? It would be great to hear a simple way to better articulate ROI to leadership, or one quick win companies can implement to increase participation.

Thank you so much! We are so appreciative of your involvement in the Pledge 1% movement!

Re: Employee Volunteering - Enhancing business & social impact

Bennett_43 — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 14:55:33 GMT

How to elevate employee volunteering and measure impact

Two themes keep coming through in our work with CSR leaders:

Leadership wants to understand the real impact value of volunteering, not just traditional outputs e.g. hours and headcounts.
Companies that use technology as an enabler, are the ones breaking through participation, scale, and admin challenges, while realising corporate ambitions.

1) A simple way to articulate ROI: focus on impact value, not just outputs

Rather than leading with “X hours, Y volunteers,” frame ROI as impact value at both business and community level. A simple structure:

Business impact: how volunteering advances core priorities

Talent and culture: Evidence and storytelling of employee volunteering driving belonging, connectivity, purpose, well-being and development – especially for early‑career retention and satisfaction of staff.
Strategic positioning: How initiatives align with key markets, products, or themes (e.g., financial literacy, digital inclusion, health equity) that matter to your strategy, stakeholders and drives sustained community impact.

2) One quick win to increase participation: treat technology as the enabler, not an afterthought

A practical quick win we see use technology to overcome key admin, planning and operational challenges and personalise participation improving employee engagement.

For many companies, employees want to volunteer, but they experience:

Poor engagement, communication and follow up
Limited relevance to their role, skills, location, or schedule
Inability to help maximise the desired level of change and impact

A specialist platform (Rosterfy is one example) can:

Automate the admin and planning pain: Shift scheduling, reminders, check‑in/out, and basic compliance from spreadsheets and inboxes into automated workflows – especially critical once you move beyond a handful of events.
Integrate with your HRIS: Use existing employee data (role, location, department, work patterns) to be able to; target opportunities more intelligently, reach deskless and frontline workers who are often missed, ensure secure access and accurate reporting.
Improve the end-to-end employee experience: Make it easy to discover, sign up, show up, and receive recognition – in a way that feels joined up, not like a separate side project.

If this resonates and echoes your own experience and would be interested in chatting further, please feel free to shoot me a line newman_andrew@outlook.com

Re: Employee Volunteering - Enhancing business & social impact

Michelle Fifis — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 21:26:45 GMT

Thank you so much for these extra insights!