Conventional wisdom would say letting employees work for charities and good causes is a massive resource drain, but that has been dramatically changed by remote work. It's now viable to fit blocks of 'micro-volunteering' into normal day-to-day schedules without leaving your desk.
More importantly, there there are increasingly common business activities that:
- A: Can be replaced with impact alternatives with relative ease
- B: Where the impactful alternative would actually provide superior value
For business activities that meet the above criteria, there isn't even a time-cost to volunteering, because it's time that would have been spent on the activity anyway! The two most obvious examples are:
- Replace traditional L&D activities (i.e. useless seminars/workshops) with real-world (remote) training where employees solve real problems for real non-profits.
- Replace the fictional case studies and tests in the hiring process with real-world (remote) equivalents that allow candidates to solve real problems for non-profits.
I have been speaking to different management teams and it seems that, even if they agree with the viability, they don't have any desire to change. I started a company to try kick-start this change by doing all the implementation/coordination for companies, but the resistance has been the same.
I know it is too much to hope for altruism from companies, but why resist if you genuinely believe it can drive profit and competitive advantage (e.g. attracting better employees, increasing engagement and tenure)?
Does anyone have any insight on the matter? Has anyone came across companies that are actually trying to direct a significant portion of employee time/skills to good causes rather than vanity volunteering for PR purposes? Would it make a difference to you if your company let you do skilled work for good causes?