Kicking off our two-part series on Employee Engagement, this session highlighted the opportunities for engagement strategies in the new hybrid work environment, as well as critical initiatives to foster community and support employees remotely. Read the recap below and access the session resources here.
The continued uncertainty around in-person gatherings has improved our tactics of virtual employee engagement, leading to strategic shifts in our Pledge 1% programs around volunteering, giving, and awareness campaigns. Whether your social impact teams are organized within the Marketing, Corporate Affairs, or People departments in your company, successful programs need to adapt to the hybrid environment as we face the challenges of the post-pandemic workplace.
In this session, Pledge 1% Chief Executive, Amy Lesnick spoke with Erin Dieterich of New Relic, Kathy Gu of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Nisha Kadaba of PagerDuty about the integration of the new work environment into their social impact programs over the last 18 months. We also heard from Christina Frantz, Director of Social Impact at Twilio, who shared an update about the next WePledge 1% cohort starting in February 2022.
Here are our 4 takeaways from the event:
1. Human interaction should be at the center of employee engagement.
Getting people to connect with their coworkers and local communities should be at the heart of employee engagement. With hybrid workplaces on the rise, traditional ideas about volunteering, employee giving, and community connections are changing towards “learning and doing” where employees are brought together to learn the simple actions they can do in their own lives to make a difference.
2. Reflecting on feedback is essential to combat engagement fatigue.
Companies are finding a correlation between people who participate in their social impact programs and their retention. As employees continue to face uncertainty on a global scale, the engagement strategies implemented to employees as well as new hires need to be accessible. Tools like Benevity help make it easy for employees to track their impact, choose which partners they want to volunteer or donate, and open doors to participate in causes with their colleagues.
3. Expanding employee engagement across borders has never been easier than today.
Enhancing the VTO (Volunteer Time-Off) policy includes meeting employees where they’re at, given the resources and interests within their local community. Being more flexible and open-ended about where employees spend their time volunteering is a huge first step in breaking the barrier to engagement, as companies are starting to include peaceful demonstration and voting as ways to participate in corporate citizenship.
4. Employees are change agents waiting to be empowered.
Companies should provide the tools and resources for employees to engage. Activating employees to become a more central part of your organization’s social impact strategy is a journey best shared with like-minded people who want to create impact, collectively. Twilio has open-sourced their WePledge 1% approach and has partnered with Pledge 1% to guide small groups in developing employee impact programs.
You can learn more about WePledge 1% here.
You can also watch the full recording below:
Originally posted: October 15th, 2021
