The Case for Employee Volunteering

EVOLVE, Employee Volunteering Venture, strives to promote partnership between the corporate sector and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil service organizations (CSOs) through donation of time and skills of corporate employees.

Ideas behind employee volunteering are strongly supported by the stakeholder model of management which maintains that good management benefits as many stakeholders involved in a business as possible. Stakeholders not only include customers, shareholders, and employees, but also society at large as every company has some effect on its social and environmental surroundings. Thus, a well-managed corporate company will include social and environmental considerations in its functions.

In the context of India and its extreme socio-economic disparities, NGOs and CSOs hold a key role as agents of change at the forefront of the development sector. Therefore, building partnerships with NGOs and CSOs would enable corporate houses to affect social and environmental change.

While the corporate sector in India has contributed to development predominantly in the way of funding, corporate houses can explore a new dimension of involvement by instituting employee volunteering programs. Applying the expertise and skill sets of the corporate sector directly to the high-impact issues of NGOs and CSOs benefits all of society as a whole, including both parties involved: corporate employees receive an opportunity to hone their management and team-building skills while raising awareness of pressing social issues, while NGOs and CSOs receive support in the way of capacity building. Ultimately, results have shown that volunteerism also empowers the employee to create his or her own engendered, compassionate work environment in which the individual can cope better with his or her own pressures.

In this time of India's economic advancements, volunteerism is a necessary part of India's collective national development. After all, India's independence was won by one of the greatest volunteer efforts of all time, and its growth depends on the continuation of that volunteer tradition.

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