What is meant by Corporate or Business Sharing?
In today’s global business environment, the philosophy driving corporate or business social responsibility is based on the belief that the social, as well as the economic, wellbeing of society is fundamental to business competitiveness and ultimately, business success.
Companies throughout the world are increasingly promoting the ideal of corporate social responsibility. Such companies share the belief that business has a significant role to play in addressing global poverty, social inequity and environmental concerns. In partnership with government and non government organizations, these companies engage with their communities in order to build stronger, healthier societies.
Corporate or Business social responsibility involves much more than writing cheques. In combination with financial support, companies are offering the use of business premises and facilities, providing management and technical expertise, donating gifts in kind (including company products) and sharing company networks.
Many businesses and community organizations enter into partnerships to achieve a social outcome.
One of the most effective forms of corporate social responsibility is corporate or employee volunteering.
What is Corporate/Business volunteering?
Corporate/Business, or employee volunteering, is one way in which businesses can fulfill their social responsibility. Companies which engage in corporate volunteering actively support and encourage their employees to volunteer their services to a local community organization. Steadily growing in popularity since the 1990s, corporate volunteering involves the contribution of time, talent, energy, skills and resources by the company’s workforce.
Benefits for business
Companies which run corporate volunteering programs can attest to the many advantages for their businesses. There are six commonly recognized benefits for business. These include reputation and risk management, employee satisfaction, innovation, access to capital and financial performance and may manifest themselves in the following ways:
• increased company pride and loyalty by staff
• better employee attendance, recruitment & retention
• improved staff morale, motivation, team spirit & initiative
• enhanced workplace relationships – unique opportunities for staff to work with people from different areas and levels of their organization
• new skill development opportunities for staff
• a more positive corporate image
• heightened and positive recognition by customers and consumers
• new business opportunities
• transformed relationship between the company & the local community
• improved triple bottom line.
Benefits for employees
Encouraging staff involvement in a well-structured and supported corporate volunteer program has wide-ranging benefits for the employees involved. These include:
• a sense of personal satisfaction and fulfillment
• new learning experiences outside normal job parameters
• new and more positive perception of career, workplace, peers and management team
• unique opportunities to interact with people from other areas within the company thus improving communication and teamwork
• opportunities to meet new people and explore new situations and challenges
• providing opportunities to create pathways to community involvement for employees reaching retirement age.
Benefits to the community
Corporate volunteering can respond to the needs of the community within which they operate have real and practical benefits on a number of important levels.
These include:
• transferring skills, knowledge and technical expertise into the community
• providing access to teams of volunteers for major tasks
• improving understanding between the business and voluntary sectors
• providing access to free or subsidized resources
• increasing public awareness of community issues
• changing company behaviors and practices that create social, economic or environmental problems
• creating new income streams for community projects.
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