PTO To Volunteer

deniseE

Does anyone provide limited PTO to ee's to volunteer for "approved" organizations?

We've been tossing around the idea of developing a program that would permit ee's to take about 2 hours each month of work time to donate to a local charity or organization. We think that this would benefit both the community and our public image...and probably would be appreciated by the ee's as well.

We would want to exclude any directly religious or political organizations...for example running a political campaign or marching in a "pro-life" rally would not be approved...however, working a soup kitchen run by a church would be OK.

We do have a number of ee's participating in a mentor program with the local school district...but as it is the ee's must use their lunch hour...we thought that we could do better....

thougths?

POPEYE

While I think the concept is great and your EEs that are mentoring in the school should be given accolades for volunteering, I think you are really opening up avenues for abuse, not to mention the record-keeping/monitoring nightmare it would create.

Don D

How about working the soup kitchen at the church which is in the news regularly for it's pro-life position and concentrates a large portion of it's mission work and funds on pro-life causes, including the donations to the soup kitchen. You are entering a spider web my dear.

HRinGA

The only time we allow employees to volunteer is during our United Way campaign. It is a one time, one-day deal where different companies put together a team to work at different UW agencies. It's called project serve and we pay them their normal work day for volunteering all day. It seems to work fine.
We tried to get involved with JA (Junior Achievement) where employees volunteer throughout the month. However, like other posters said: It became a nightmare and several began to abuse.
I think it would be hard to decide who could volunteer for what.

marc

We used to allow 1.5 hours per week to be utilized in this fashion. It required supervisor approval - so company workload always came first. We placed a moratorium on the policy when the new Exec Dir finally looked at it. In our shop, most of our funding comes with restrictions - only supposed to be used for specific purposes. Ethically, we felt it was a misuse of funds for hourly EEs to be paid with restricted funds and allowed to work on other charitable projects. We never had any issues with ineligible non profits such as those mentioned above but I could see how it would be a problem.

If you are a for profit company, I think it is a great idea. One company worked extensively with us on a teen tutoring project. Generated great good will in the community and really helped a lot of struggling teens. I would say go for it if you can get over the hurdles brought out by the posts so far.

Brad Forrister

It might be easier to manage if the company (or an employee committee) picked one worthy program rather than letting the employees choose from among several. You'd be more likely to make an impact, and the PR benefits would probably be greater as well.

Brad Forrister
VP/Content
M. Lee Smith Publishers

Moses

We've used "PTO to volunteer" for several years and it has been a great success. We allow up to 8 hours a month to volunteer for any non-profit organizations and use our local United Way list of organizations as a sample of the groups we recognize. Here's how ours works: for every 8 hours of volunteer time we will credit hour for hour of paid time off. So if the employee volunteers at least 8 hours a month, every month, they stand to earn 12 days of paid time off every year. The employee is required to have the director of the organization sign off on the time worked. When it comes time for the employee to use the PTO time, they simply turn in their "time off card" and if there is no scheduling conflict the time off is granted. If the employee leaves us, we do not pay then their unused volunteer time. It's use it or lose it while you are still employed. It's a great incentive to encourage employees to "give back" to the community. I'm all for that.

deniseE

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-04-04 AT 12:31PM (CST)[/font][br][br]Thank you all for your input!!!

I know this could be a nightmare to oversee...but in the long run I think it will benefit everyone!

POPEYE

>We've used "PTO to volunteer" for several years
>and it has been a great success. We allow up to
>8 hours a month to volunteer for any non-profit
>organizations and use our local United Way list
>of organizations as a sample of the groups we
>recognize. Here's how ours works: for every 8
>hours of volunteer time we will credit hour for
>hour of paid time off. So if the employee
>volunteers at least 8 hours a month, every
>month, they stand to earn 12 days of paid time
>off every year. The employee is required to have
>the director of the organization sign off on the
>time worked. When it comes time for the employee
>to use the PTO time, they simply turn in their
>"time off card" and if there is no scheduling
>conflict the time off is granted. If the
>employee leaves us, we do not pay then their
>unused volunteer time. It's use it or lose it
>while you are still employed. It's a great
>incentive to encourage employees to "give back"
>to the community. I'm all for that.


Moses - First of all, just how did you get across the Red Sea???

Seriously - If you give them 8 hours each month away from work is that paid or unpaid? Then another 8 hours or hour for hour up to 96 hours so are you effectively giving them 192 hours a year away from work?

twochr

Our company not only allows it but encourages it. We are the developer of a 75,000 person community and are still very active in the future development. Therefore, our employees mentor at the schools, deliver meals on wheels, volunteer at various charities an hour or so a week. This is not only fulfilling for the employee and good for the recipient, but is excellent PR for our company. And of course, our employees are paid for this time.

deniseE

I think Moses meant that for every 8 hours an ee donates of his/her personal time...the company pays for the 9th hour.

Did I get it right??

POPEYE

for every 8
>hours of volunteer time we will credit hour for
>hour of paid time off. So if the employee
>volunteers at least 8 hours a month, every
>month, they stand to earn 12 days of paid time
>off every year.

That's not what the post says. 8 hours a month
= 12 days a year. Sounds like it is hour for hour.

Moses

You're exactly right. The employee volunteers their own time (after work or on the weekend) and we reward them with up to 8 hours a month of paid time off for their effort. This has been a great win for us because, even though the employee uses their own time to volunteer, our absenteeism has gone way down and the community organizations love it becasue you can never have enough volunteers.

System

Moses,

Congratulations on having such a generous and civic-minded employer. I thought corporate cutbacks did away with most of them.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com