Volunteering at Work: Purpose Improves Company Culture

Volunteering with coworkers is an amazing way to get involved in the community and improve your work experience. While the benefits of volunteering in your community are somewhat obvious, it may be harder to see why volunteering with your coworkers would be beneficial to company culture. 

The Benefits

Here are some of the benefits I’ve experienced from volunteering with co-workers: 

1. Impact: When you volunteer with your company, you not only make an impact in the community and those in need, you’re also directly impacting your company morale. This can be reflected in something as small as more smiles around the work-place. 😊
2. Relationships: Interacting with co-workers is much easier once you’ve had a chance to do some good together outside of the office. Finding common ground can increase efficiency and productivity, which is great for everyone!
3. Networking: Volunteering can be a great way to meet new people and teams you may have not typically interact with, especially at larger companies. Following volunteer days I often sent emails to people I’d met, beginning the conversation with a memory of our time or work together. This not only opened our working relationship on a positive note it also set the tone of the conversation as a little less formal.
   

Where to start

My prior company, PIMCO, had amazing employees solely dedicated to managing our volunteer experiences and our company giving programs. I was blessed with an amazing company foundation that organized many monthly outings where employees could step away from the desk for a few hours to give back. 

However, if you do not work at a company with something similar, you can use DiveIn to help find volunteer opportunities. It would be as simple as finding some co-workers who also share the desire to make an impact and choosing an event that sounds good. In order to attend an event during the workday, you may need some sort of manager approval. Unfortunately, we cannot help with that just yet 😉.

Your Impact

At the end of the day, you are volunteering because you want to make an impact in your community, help someone less fortunate than you, or just lend a hand to a cause you are passionate about. It is not necessarily what volunteering can do for you, however, being able to volunteer with your co-workers and improve your day-to-day work life is a nice added bonus. There is nothing wrong with having a mutually beneficial relationship with your volunteering. Just embrace it and use it as an excuse to go out and get involved with coworkers!