Month: July 2023

Over the past few years, many companies have set strong intentions around diversity, equity, and inclusion. The trouble is: they don’t always have the strategy in place to deliver on their promises.

The good/bad news is that many companies already have an important component for DEI strategy in place, but it’s often overlooked. Done right, employee volunteering can be an integral part of a company’s DEI efforts. Angela Parker, CEO and co-founder of social impact consulting firm Realized Worth, explained during the Impact Studio conference, “There’s a necessary and very natural overlap between CSR and DEI.”

Unfortunately, many teams approach volunteering and DEI as two distinct and separate efforts. To capitalize on the natural overlap, CSR and HR leaders need to be proactive about aligning their volunteering strategy with their DEI intentions.

Find the intersection between your CSR and DEI goals

The goals and outcomes of corporate social responsibility programs and DEI efforts aren’t exactly the same, but they’re closely related. Often what’s good for volunteering programs is good for DEI efforts and vice versa.

That’s because corporate volunteering programs provide transformative experiences for employees—experiences that embed the goals of DEI in your culture in ways that handouts and lectures never could. Volunteering can boost DEI efforts in the following ways.

Build and strengthen relationships between coworker

When an employee volunteers alongside coworkers from different backgrounds or levels of the organizational chart, they get to know them as people, not stereotypes. Socialized barriers break down as volunteer teams share ideas, solve problems, and make progress together.

Increase career opportunities for employees

Volunteering gives employees from underrepresented groups an opportunity to improve and acquire skills. For example, a member of the customer service department could plan volunteer activities or lead a volunteer project team. They may never have a chance to practice these skills in their regular job—skills that could qualify them for a promotion.

In particular, skills-based volunteering lets employees sharpen their professional skills as they volunteer. Jen Carter, global head of technology and volunteering at Google.org, explained during the Impact Studio conference that she and her team focus on providing skills-based volunteer opportunities. “When you can find that perfect match of [an employee’s] interests and their skill sets and their lived experience, it’s just really incredible.”

Attract and retain employees from diverse populations

A robust volunteer program goes hand in hand with employee resource groups (ERGs). ERGs often build relationships with nonprofits and organize volunteer events. ERGs are also instrumental in helping employees from all backgrounds feel supported and heard at work.

Through volunteering and other ERG work, you can develop tutoring, mentoring, and training programs that help build talent pipelines for your company and other employers in the area. Train employees to provide coaching services to job seekers, new professionals, and small business owners.

Volunteering programs embed DEI in corporate culture

Through volunteering, DEI can become more than a topic of all-staff emails and press releases; it can be something experienced by employees. Volunteering programs take employees out of their usual sphere to work alongside people who come from all walks of life: different economic levels, ages, races, cultures, sexual orientations, religions, and other backgrounds.

Spending time with co-workers, nonprofit staff, and constituents from different demographics—people they normally don’t hang out with—raises employees’ individual and collective DEI EQ and IQ. Employees are exposed to diverse perspectives, which increases their understanding and empathy. The volunteering experience challenges existing beliefs and biases better than any training session could.

Angela Parker of Realized Worth says volunteering opportunities “guide people to a place where they change from the inside out. Where their actual biases are challenged. Where the assumptions that they have about people groups and social issues are called into question.”

Employees return to work with new insights and perspectives. They learn from fellow human beings how to think and talk about DEI issues, check their own biases, and be better allies. They live the experience instead of reading or watching something about it. Volunteering makes DEI personal, not a job requirement.

Enhance the volunteering experience for everyone involved

Aligning DEI and volunteering efforts benefits everyone. Employees get to be a part of meaningful projects that can transform their world view. And the teams responsible for these programs can work together to harness their collective power. Follow these steps to make it happen.

1. Select diverse teams

An effective corporate volunteering program requires intentionality in decisions, even minor ones. When putting together a volunteer team, invite employees from across the company and at different levels of the organizational chart. Choose people who normally don’t work with each other. ERGs can help mobilize people so you don’t end up with the same few volunteers at every event. You want to reach those who haven’t raised their hand before.

2. Remove barriers

Identify and remove barriers that keep employees from volunteering. Make an effort to ensure that opportunities are accessible to all employees. Be cognizant of employees who can’t volunteer outside the workday. Many people can only volunteer during business hours because of personal responsibilities or transportation issues.

Technology plays a big role here too. If the sign-up process is complicated or confusing, people will opt out. Give employees one place to view volunteer opportunities, sign up, and track their volunteer time off.

3. Choose meaningful projects

Work with nonprofit partners to find projects with purpose. Projects must meet the primary needs of either the nonprofit or its constituents. They can’t be team-building or feel-good activities that were created especially for your company. The project must have the potential to make a real difference to the nonprofit and community.

4. Encourage a collaborative mindset

Volunteers must bring the right mindset and attitude. Angela Parker asks volunteers to “undo their saviorism. To stop seeing themselves as going to help the needy. But instead, to see themselves as entering a relationship.”

Choose projects where volunteers are doing work with a group or community rather than doing something to them.

5. Schedule longer assignments

Volunteers should have a regular assignment where they can develop relationships with people in the nonprofit or community. “To change [volunteers] from the inside out, you have to have experiences over time… [in] a respectful relationship where we are not going to objectify or save those whom we perceive as other, but where we are going to learn and receive from them, and be changed and transformed by them,” Parker says.

A longer assignment gives volunteers time to reflect upon the thoughts and feelings that rise up throughout their experience. This type of self-reflection is required for DEI awareness and allyship.

Angela said, “Being in spaces over repeated periods of time and forcing yourself to deal with your complicity in the issues. Where else is a better, safer, more accessible arena to do that in than the space that is volunteering?”

Make volunteering a pillar of your DEI efforts

In reality, if you’re spending too much time dealing with the administrative details of running a volunteer program, you likely won’t have the bandwidth to do high-level strategy work. And that’s what it takes to connect your volunteering and DEI efforts.

With the right corporate volunteering platform, you can free your team from the busywork while strengthening your volunteering program and your DEI values.

Southern Company

Through its investment in Energy Impact Partners (EIP), Southern Company supports some of the most innovative new technology companies in the energy ecosystem. Southern Company subsidiaries also actively engage with many of these emerging companies in a mutual quest for new ways to improve their business processes.

One such company is Urbint. Urbint uses artificial intelligence in combination with real-world data to predict threats to workers, communities, critical infrastructure and the environment, and to help stop accidents before they happen. Such predictive solutions are potentially game-changing in Southern Company’s pursuit of its core value of Safety First.

Urbint technology has been successfully applied to identify the risk of leaks or third-party damages to underground utilities. Urbint worked with Southern Company Gas to develop the damage prevention solution which was first deployed at Nicor Gas and eventually expanded throughout the enterprise.More recently, Urbint has developed solutions for enhanced worker safety, identifying safety hazards and threats in advance in order to prevent incidents that can result in life-altering injuries or even fatalities.

Georgia Power is currently engaged with Urbint for a Worker Safety pilot at two distribution centers. Urbint is developing a “smart” electronic job safety briefing (JSB) with hazard analysis that will be deployed on field crews’ iPads.

Using information about incidents and “near misses” gleaned from Georgia Power, Urbint’s risk engine will harmonize facts about work site conditions and project data with Urbint’s task and hazard library to identify specific risks, the hazard potential for each job task, and recommend preventive measures. And, as more users embrace the Urbint solution, data gleaned from the experience of others across the nation will provide even greater insights for safety precautions.

“We are excited about this partnership with Urbint,” said Michael Middleton, director of safety and health for Georgia Power. “As we combine our actively-caring safety culture with new technology, data, analytics and artificial intelligence, this partnership has the potential to lead us to a safer tomorrow.”

“Ultimately, our IBEW partners are the end users of this technology,” added Middleton. “They’ve been engaged from the beginning to provide real-time feedback to our leadership team and to Urbint. They know the work and understand the hazards. Their influence will help us create a robust electronic job safety briefing that should ultimately help prevent injuries.”

“We’ve designed a job safety brief that will provide an interactive and engaging experience for the worker. If that doesn’t happen, the JSB won’t optimize for safety and will never achieve full adoption in the field,” explained Urbint CEO Corey Capasso. “By leveraging Urbint to integrate safety science into an engaging tailboard meeting, Georgia Power is making it easier for their teams to identify hazards and implement appropriate controls which can ultimately prevent injuries and even save lives.”

The Worker Safety pilot is ongoing for the duration of 2023.

NEW YORK, July 6, 2023 /3BL/ – The Board of Directors of the UN Global Compact Network USA (Network USA), the American chapter of the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, is pleased to announce that Adam Roy Gordon has been appointed as the organization’s next Executive Director.

Network USA was founded in 2007 as the local chapter of the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative that calls on companies everywhere to align their operations and strategies with the UN Global Compact Ten Principles and the ambition of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Mr. Gordon, who has been acting Interim Executive Director for the past year, was Network USA’s first employee, joining the organization in 2017. Since then, the organization’s network has grown, increasing its programmatic offerings and engagement with US-based companies and organizations. This year Network USA expanded its staff threefold and recently announced it had reached a milestone of over 1,000 signatories, representing more than $5 trillion in revenue.

“On behalf of the UN Global Compact Network USA Board of Directors, I’m thrilled to welcome Adam as Executive Director,” said Daniella Foster, Network USA Board Chair. “With Adam’s leadership and years of service at Network USA, we hold strong confidence in his ability to navigate the organization’s growth and drive impactful change.”

“I am deeply honored to assume the role of Executive Director of the UN Global Compact Network USA, and I express my sincere gratitude to the Board of Directors for their confidence and this invaluable opportunity,” said Mr. Gordon. “Over the years, I have been continuously inspired by our participants’ strong commitment and progress-driven efforts. The potential for US private sector leadership in driving sustainability fills me with excitement, and I look forward to partnering with our network, the Board, and our tremendous staff to propel the goals and principles of the UN Global Compact to new heights.”

Adam brings an illustrious background in sustainability to his role. Previously, Adam worked at CDP, supporting integrating climate change, water, and deforestation disclosure into corporate performance. He was an EDF Climate Corps Fellow at Colgate-Palmolive Company. He has had diverse experience in sustainability, from advising the Montenegro government on green building policy to founding NYC’s first commercial composting waste hauler. Adam also contributes to The Atlantic and is currently an adjunct professor in Columbia University’s Sustainability Management program.

About UN Global Compact Network USA

The UN Global Compact Network USA is the Local Network chapter of the United Nations Global Compact. As a special initiative of the UN Secretary-General, the United Nations Global Compact calls for companies everywhere to align their operations and strategies with the Ten Principles in human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption. Our ambition is to accelerate and scale the collective global impact of business by upholding the Ten Principles and delivering Sustainable Development Goals through accountable companies and ecosystems that enable change.

Contact

Jessica Tuquero 
Head of Communications 
Tel: +1 (646) 573-7377
Email: jessica@globalcompactusa.org