Incorporating Volunteering into Corporate Wellness Programs

Employee volunteering is highly important to the workplace, and if businesses want to support their employees’ engagement efforts, they should consider including volunteering in their wellness program. There are many benefits to incorporating volunteering into a wellness program:

1. By incorporating volunteering into your wellness program, you demonstrate to your employees that they are valued and appreciated. Employees want to feel as if they have a purpose, so by acknowledging their volunteer service, you are acknowledging their hard work and dedication to their community. This helps employees feel like trusted and purposeful members of the team, which boosts their self-confidence, productivity, and work ethic.
   
2. Incorporating volunteering into your wellness program will increase teamwork and team growth in the workplace. Volunteering is a team effort that requires a lot of collaborative thinking and reliance on your peers. By integrating volunteering into your wellness program, your employees will spend more time cooperating with each other and other members of the community. This will most likely translate into a more collaborative and efficient work environment.
   
3. Incorporating volunteering into your wellness program will promote employee self-assurance and self-confidence. Volunteering requires problem-solving abilities, altruism, and strong social skills. When employees become involved in volunteer opportunities, they develop and improve upon these skills, and they become more confident in applying these skills to their work. After volunteering, most employees are more likely to take on greater challenges in their workplace.
   
4. Volunteering is good for employees’ physical and mental health, making it essential to your wellness program. There are a myriad of health benefits to volunteering that will create a stronger, healthier, more productive workplace. For instance, volunteering helps employees to manage their stress better and prevent ‘burn-out’, a feeling of mental exhaustion. Volunteering has also been shown to lead to longer, happier, and more fulfilling lives.
   
5. Incorporating volunteering into your wellness program helps connect your employees to their community. During Covid-19, employees have felt isolated from their communities, especially if they were working from home. Volunteering helps people to make connections and relationships within their broader community, and they can meet people with different backgrounds and perspectives. This can help alleviate feelings of loneliness and encourage employees to be more social.
   

There are many ways to incorporate volunteers into your wellness program to recognize and appreciate their hard work and dedication. Businesses can support volunteering by offering paid volunteer hours so that employees are given time for service, or businesses host drives, special events, or fundraisers within their company to show their support. Businesses can even create staff teams for community events like 5ks and fundraising races to encourage their employees to take part. Lastly, businesses should recognize their employees who show exemplary service to their community; showing your appreciation for volunteers is the best way to make your employees feel important.