CSR Peer Learning session #5: Employee (& community) Love & Loyalty Through Volunteering

Transcription

1 CSR Peer Learning session #5: Employee (& community) Love & Loyalty Through Volunteering

2 Watch, listen and/or download the full webinar

3 A CSR Peer Learning Network?

4 Purpose Inspiration & camaraderie Connections Useful data nuggets Practical tools & ideas If we did all the things we were capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. --Thomas A. Edison, via Jessica Cook, VWT Set the stage for collaboration

5 Series I a 6-session dive into travel CSR 1. CSR value prop and member baseline (April 2, South Street Seaport, NYC) 2. Making a difference in Nepal and disaster giving: finding and supporting great projects (June 11, MaCher, LA) 3. Sharing & Storytelling: communicating your good works externally and internally (September 24, Hostelling International, Boston) 4. To Give or Not to Give: engaging clients in funding projects (December 1, USTOA conference, Chicago) 5. Employee volunteering in travel (March 15, National Park Foundation, Washington, DC) 6. Clients v2, To Volunteer or Not: voluntourism (TBD 2016)

6 Who We Are 410 parks, monuments, historic properties, symbols of American pride, walkways, trails and programs Impacts every county in the United States Diverse Areas of Interest History, Community, Wellness/Recreation, Education, Environment $13 billion in local annual economic impact 221,000 engaged volunteers 84 million acres of land 307 million visits per year 145 million website visitors per year 22,000 rangers, scientists, environmentalists, educators and others

7 The official charity of America s national parks, with a mission to: PROTECT CONNECT INSPIRE Find Your Park 7

8 2 billion 3.99 billion Media & Social Impressions PR Impressions million National Park Site Visits in million Social Engagements on NPS & NPF Channels Results through February 29, 2016 Find Your Park 8

9 Agenda: CSR Peer Learning Session #5 of 6 I. Who is here? (5 ) II. What we think about employee volunteering(15 ) III. Dilemma #1: getting volunteers to volunteer: addressing constraints in employer programs. (15 ) IV. Dilemma #2: Managing diverse national teams, including small ones. (15 ) V. Dilemma #3: Does skilled volunteering have a place in the travel industry and some of our companies? (15 )

10 Our national, virtual discussion We want as interactive a conversation as possible warning, you may be called on! All lines will be MUTED to protect our audio quality. Please MESSAGE JOHN Moderator in WEBEX to enter the discussion queue

11 Who is here?

12 Some of today s peer players Frano Finn Virgin America Jessica Ahern Tourism Cares Kelly Pitre Contiki/Travel Corp. Mike Rea Tourism Cares

13 and you!

14 What do we think about employee volunteering? Survey data read-out

15 Volunteering matters to employees

16 And it s resourced pretty well including with paid time off!

17 But of course it s easier said than done

18 Lessons from our volunteering programs It Matters and Feels Great It s great for team building. It creates strong loyalty to the company It is a great way to connect with coworkers Giving back to the communities we help is the reward Depending on your business (and volunteering), it can be good for business! In addition to external relationships and appreciation of others, we ve also made great business connections. What sorts of volunteering activities do you do? With what kinds of organizations?

19 What does our audience care about?

20 From impact to fun How we can add to the experience

21 The greatest sticking points with corporate volunteering appear to be: How to get the offer of volunteer paid time off right Days off are offered on weekdays; yet most volunteer projects are weekends: means mostly group volunteering for the days given. Impact & time How to maximize my time for greatest impact How to help more people How to get more involved More travel give-back options

22 Dilemma set #1: Creating opportunities for volunteers to volunteer! Perspectives on group volunteering (as a company) and individual volunteering (separately) How to find the right time! Constraints and successes around weekdays vs weekends.

23 We re going to put together a program that if you volunteer on the weekend and it s a company sanctioned event, we would give them whatever day off if they asked for it. Kelly Pitre, The Travel Corporation

24 We engineer volunteer events around earth day and world tourism day open up to staff, vendors and local hospitality majors at universities near by afterwards have a happy hour where our employees can network with various people in our company but also network with our top hotel partners, motor coach partners, professors from local universities, it helps engage future attendance. -Tracie Wingo, Globus

25 If we have a holiday party, we look for a one time, local opportunity. It may be small but we can build it in that way, we don t have the wherewithal to do larger events once you get a mindset of `this is part of what you want to do at your company, the opportunities start coming up in surprising places -Gina Weyer, Signature Travel Network

26 We made a political decision not to allow weekend volunteering. The goal is people look at how the business gives back, something that is part of the work place, we felt it was too easy to have folks volunteering over the weekend in return for having a day off during the week. It didn t speak right to our culture. -Derek Hydon, MaCher

27 Dilemma #2, from Franco at Virgin America I run the a national volunteering program for Virgin America out of our HQ in San Francisco. A current dilemma is how I can best reach out to other markets/stations across the country. How can I keep them engaged when they are remote from HQ, and how can I prioritize and best help those with smaller numbers of associates?

28 We have about 3,000 employees nationwide. 1/3 of our employees are in the sky. Our biggest challenge is getting our mobile workforce engaged. Our give back mentality is strong and the find your park program is a great fit. Our plan is to rally around find your park wherever you are you can find a park and give back -Franco Finn, Virgin America

29 There is never a good time for everyone, business is important, customer service is important, look for opportunities people can do on their own time, on their computer, on their phone, on their commute. To engage remote employees if we have a drive or collection, I engage our remote staff by having them collect whatever we are collecting, tell them to take a picture of whatever it is they ve collected and I ll make sure they get credit for it, but have them donate it to a local drive. Its incredible fun and a great team building activity. They ve done something in their local community and with us and everyone feels good. -Roni Goldberg, Tauck

30 Dilemma #3, from Mike at Tourism Cares Skilled volunteering is growing within American corporations and adds a powerful, impactful new dimension to employee volunteering and team building: How can we best run a pilot for the travel industry? Under what circumstances would your company be interested?

31 For Example: Help Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad needs: Help build up its online store with expanded photos and items from the gift shop. A website audit and set of recommendations. Help improve their teacher resource guide. Work with staff on a teacher s guide for visiting school groups, building on a math and science module for 4 th graders created by an admiring STEM teacher.

32 There are group skills based volunteer projects where you might have a team; someone from your creative team, someone from your IT team, someone from your operations team, all depending on what the different projects are. You can build them in ways that will accommodate your business and help with the nonprofits needs as well. -Roni Goldberg, Tauck

33 What comes next? Will send raw survey results Takeaways deck and follow up resources Session #6 on voluntourism in May Offer feedback, ideas and dilemmas! Recruit others!

34 Additional Resources Top Volunteer Management Software Products: Best practice is to engage with the HR department for a system that will integrate with what they already do and maybe set up volunteering as a class in their hourly reporting/scheduling. A holistic approach, that allows a way to track employee giving through matching programs can be very helpful.

35 Sample Volunteer Day Submission Form from MaCher

36 Sample of Rewarding Volunteering Program from Halo Branded Solutions For more information please contact Kimberly Mormando at

37 The National Parks Centennial lineup, Grand Canyon Natl Park (Williams, AZ) Nov. 1-3, Chattahoochee National Rec. Area (Atlanta) Feb. 5, Mississippi River NRA (Minneapolis) May 19-20, Mt. Rainier Natl Park (Seattle) Sept , The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (New York) Nov. 3-4, 2016

38 Watch, listen and/or download the full webinar

39 THANK YOU! John Yonce Director of Community Engagement Mike Rea CEO