Want To Boost Employee Morale And Productivity? Ramp Up Volunteering

“It was this beautiful fall day, and my employer was paying us to be outside in the foliage, helping to build birdhouses and put down mulch,” Kahn, a marketing and communications professional, tells Fortune. She’s since moved to another company, but that experience and others like it, including a day spent mentoring at a local school, made a deep and lasting impression.

It also boosted her mental health. “It felt like my employer cared about me as a whole human,” she says, “and not just as an employee inside the walls of the office.”

That’s no small feat these days. A recent Gallup poll shows employee stress has reached unprecedented levels and workplace well-being has been on the decline—despite the estimated $52 billion companies spent globally on wellness programs, from mindfulness training to virtual therapy, according to the Global Wellness Institute.

A recent large-scale systematic review, in fact, found that a range of workplace wellness offerings had no positive effect on employees’ well-being. But there was one clear exception: volunteering.

“My study analyzed data from about 50,000 employees over 250 companies in the U.K. Volunteering was the only one of these interventions which showed…improved well-being,” says study author William Fleming, a sociologist and research fellow at the University of Oxford. “It instills a bit more social meaning…into people’s jobs, especially if you’re working for a big corporate global organization [where] it can feel like you’re just making money for the man and spinning paper sheets around.”

It’s at least part of why corporate volunteer programs have been on an upswing, with more partnerships, volunteer hours, and active participants in 2023 than ever, according to Benevity, which helps companies including CarMax and Charles Schwab manage such programs.

In a 2023 survey of 149 companies by the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals, meanwhile, more than 60% of respondents reported increased participation in employee volunteer programs.

And employers who create these opportunities aren’t just being altruistic: There’s evidence that volunteer programs make for more positive, engaged employees who are more likely to stick around.

Why volunteering boosts well-being

Such offerings bring both peace of mind and deeper meaning to employees—whether companies are consciously motivated by this or it’s just a lucky upshot, says Jessica Rodell, a professor of management at the University of Georgia Terry College of Business who studies meaningful work experiences. And she has theories about why they are more impactful than other wellness perks.

“My study analyzed data from about 50,000 employees over 250 companies in the U.K. Volunteering was the only one of these interventions which showed…improved well-being,” says study author William Fleming, a sociologist and research fellow at the University of Oxford. “It instills a bit more social meaning…into people’s jobs, especially if you’re working for a big corporate global organization [where] it can feel like you’re just making money for the man and spinning paper sheets around.”

It’s at least part of why corporate volunteer programs have been on an upswing, with more partnerships, volunteer hours, and active participants in 2023 than ever, according to Benevity, which helps companies including CarMax and Charles Schwab manage such programs.

In a 2023 survey of 149 companies by the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals, meanwhile, more than 60% of respondents reported increased participation in employee volunteer programs.

And employers who create these opportunities aren’t just being altruistic: There’s evidence that volunteer programs make for more positive, engaged employees who are more likely to stick around.

Why volunteering boosts well-being

Such offerings bring both peace of mind and deeper meaning to employees—whether companies are consciously motivated by this or it’s just a lucky upshot, says Jessica Rodell, a professor of management at the University of Georgia Terry College of Business who studies meaningful work experiences. And she has theories about why they are more impactful than other wellness perks.

“The in-house benefits, like a workout membership or meditation, can seem like, ‘Well, you’re just trying to get the most work out of me,’” Rodell says, whereas volunteer programs feel less self-serving.

Jennifer Sirangelo, CEO of Points of Light, which consults on social impact programs with over 154 corporate partners, including many Fortune 1000 companies, says the companies are aware of and motivated by positive employee response.

Companies realize the importance of such programs for the sort of wellness that arises from team-building—especially in hybrid work environments, Sirangelo adds. “People really want there to be a purpose for coming together,” she says, and gathering in a volunteer setting is “one of the biggest motivators.”

Further, says Rodell, “prospective employees and current employees will interpret it as, ‘If they’re capable of caring about others, they can care about me. And so I’m going to work harder, and I’m going to feel better about working here, because I think they’re the type of place that has that capacity,’” she says.

This all tracks with Mark Snyder, a University of Minnesota professor of psychology who has researched the benefits of volunteering. And he’s found it brings not only a sense of purpose, new skills, social connection, and a wider perspective on life, but also health benefits.

“People who volunteer, as a result of their volunteering, have a higher sense of self-esteem, greater happiness and emotional well-being, and increased physical health,” he says. Combining it with work, he adds, which is a big part of people’s identities, could make for “particularly powerful experiences of volunteering” that will be highly valued.

“It’s a message that the employer cares enough about the community to invest in the community through providing ways for their volunteers to do good,” Snyder notes.

Rodell says that, specifically with group volunteer outings, the experience “breaks down boundaries that you wouldn’t be able to break down within the walls of the organization,” allowing employees of all levels to “get to know each other at a deeper, more individualized level.”

But employees who get volunteer time off to give back on their own time “still get that signal that the organization cares about others and that they’re willing to invest the time and money to let them have time off to support their initiative,” she says. And they, too, “should have a well-being bump.”

Companies benefit, too

Employees who participate in their workplace volunteer programs, according to the 2023 findings of Ares Management and Edge Research, are more satisfied overall with their job (79% vs. the 55% who did not volunteer). They are also more satisfied with their company’s culture (75% vs. 54%) and leadership (71% vs. 45%).