5 Reasons Your Employees Aren't Volunteering and How to Change That

So, you’ve created an amazing volunteer program. Now you’re waiting for those employee volunteer hours to start rolling in. 

And waiting. 

And waiting. 

Nothing. Zip. Zilch. 

Why aren’t your institution’s employees volunteering? You’ve given them everything they need to get started, and your institution has to hit those goals or your end-of-year report is going to be really awkward. 

You started a volunteer program because you want to make an impact in the community. But your amazing program won’t have an impact unless employees actually volunteer. 

Here are 5 reasons why your employees may not be volunteering and how to change that. 

1. They don’t know they’re supposed to volunteer

Are you sure everyone knows about your volunteer program? Did you emphasize that it does apply to them? 

Employees won’t volunteer if they don’t know they’re supposed to. And if you don’t regularly remind them about your program, then they may forget or let their volunteer hours fall on the back burner. 

Look back on the communication you’ve had. If you didn’t clearly specify that it applies to ALL employees (or whoever it does apply to if your program isn’t for everyone), then do so now. And once everyone knows they’re supposed to volunteer, regularly remind them of your policy and ask if they have any questions or concerns. This will keep your program top of mind and help employees see where they should turn if they run into any problems.

Learn more about sharing volunteer opportunities with employees here.

2. Your volunteer program is confusing 

Just because you’ve created a volunteer program doesn’t mean that employees understand what you want or how it benefits them. Are they supposed to volunteer weekly? Monthly? On their own time? Does your institution plan events or are they supposed to find their own? 

If employees aren’t volunteering, maybe they just don’t understand the program. 

To fix this problem, try and discover where your communication went wrong. It might be a good idea to pull a few employees aside and ask them what they think about your new volunteer program. Do they know what’s expected of them? Do they have any plans to volunteer? Are they confused about anything?

Once you’ve discovered if and where employees need more clarification, you can revise your volunteer program document and send an email to employees addressing their concerns and clarifying your previous communication. The volunteer program needs to be clear and easy to understand. If it is, you should start seeing some improvement.  

3. They aren’t aware of opportunities 

Who’s responsible for finding volunteer opportunities? This comes down to the way your program is set up. Are employees expecting your institution to organize volunteer days? Or did you make it clear that employees are expected to find opportunities and volunteer on their own time? 

If employees aren’t volunteering because they don’t know where to volunteer, you just need to make them aware of the opportunities in your community! You can do this by organizing employee-wide volunteer days where all employees have the chance to serve, or by creating an intranet page where you share internal and external volunteer opportunities. You could send weekly reminder emails with volunteer ideas. You could encourage team members to share any volunteer opportunities they see. There are so many ways to get the word out to your employees. 

Chances are that your institution and your community have plenty of volunteer opportunities throughout the year. You just need to make sure employees know about them. 

Learn how Fox Communities CU organized an employee-wide volunteer day and logged over 400 hours in ONE day here.

4. They haven’t made time to volunteer

Volunteering isn’t easy or convenient, especially if you ask employees to volunteer on their own time. Ideally, your institution will pay employees for the time they spend helping others. For example, Bankers Trust gives each full-time, non-exempt employee 8 hours of Volunteer Time Off (VTO) every year. Employees can use this time whenever they want, but must use it to volunteer at a nonprofit organization of their choice. Bankers Trust has found this to be an effective way to encourage employees to volunteer because employees get to choose where they serve and it’s typically at a nonprofit close to their heart. Learn more about how Bankers Trust encourages employees to volunteer here.

If your institution doesn’t provide VTO, then you may need to get creative when encouraging employees to volunteer. Put yourself in your employees’ shoes. Do you want to spend your free time helping others? Of course you do. But have you made time to do so? 

Volunteering takes a lot of commitment, but your employees already have plenty of commitments outside of work, including taking care of children, visiting relatives, participating in a hobby, spending time with friends, and many more. If you ask too much of them, chances are they won’t ever get around to volunteering. 

To fix this, do whatever you can to give employees the time they need to volunteer while on the clock. This may mean implementing VTO like Bankers Trust or organizing institution-wide volunteer days like Isabella Bank. If paying employees to volunteer doesn't make sense for your institution, then make it as easy as possible for them to volunteer outside of work. This may mean only requiring a few volunteer hours a year, sharing opportunities and asking others to do the same, or providing another incentive like a rewards program.  

Chances are your employees want to volunteer, and when you help them make time to do so, you’ll likely see those volunteer hours soar. 

Isabella Bank employees volunteering in the community

5. Reporting volunteer hours is difficult 

As if asking employees to volunteer wasn’t enough, many financial institutions also ask employees to report their volunteer hours. 

If your institution is like so many others, this is a tedious task. And if you ask too much of your employees, chances are they just won’t volunteer. 

Instead of making employees fill out complicated forms, search for outdated spreadsheets, or report hours to their manager, you can use Kadince to track and report your institution’s volunteer hours. With Kadince, employees may not even need to track their own hours (because Kadince can log hours automatically), and if they do, it’s extremely fast and easy. 

If your institution organizes events, you can automatically track volunteer hours based on attendance. With the click of only a few buttons, you can update the event volunteer hours, which will automatically update each employee’s personal volunteer hours. And then you can run reports, create widgets, and wow your executive board. 

Schedule a demo to learn how Kadince makes tracking employee volunteer hours fast, easy, and efficient. Once your employees see how easy Kadince is, they’ll be begging to submit their hours. And those hours will finally start rolling in.

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