WELL giving: Employee volunteering at IWBI
By fostering connections and providing an increased sense of purpose, volunteering can positively impact elements of emotional well-being.
At IWBI, we are always looking for ways to live out our values, striving to create a wellness-focused culture that enables people to lead happier and healthier lives. Those familiar with our standard realize the comprehensive nature of wellness and the importance of policies and programs dedicated to the mental, physical and emotional health of employees. By fostering connections and providing an increased sense of purpose, volunteering can positively impact elements of emotional well-being. We are proud to encourage and facilitate employee volunteering globally by incorporating relevant requirements into the WELL Building StandardTM through Feature C11: Civic Engagement.
This year, we decided to take another look at our own workplace philanthropy program and consider new ways we can enable employees to take action and get more deeply involved with causes close to their hearts. In addition to our existing company-wide service activities and annual charitable donation matching, we instituted a new Volunteer Time Off (VTO) policy. Employees now receive one day of VTO per year during which they can volunteer at a non-profit of their choosing, supporting a cause that is meaningful to them and, in turn, taking time to remember the importance of offering support to those who need it most.
A handful of employees have begun taking their VTO this summer, and we look forward to continuing to see which organizations employees choose to spend the day with and the different projects they complete. We’ve paired this new policy with a shared volunteer calendar so that employees can easily find volunteer events happening nearby each month. We also provide a catalogue of non-profits that employees have volunteered with or donated to in the past, in the hopes of inspiring employees who share similar passions. At monthly, company-wide meetings, we take a few minutes to recognize a different employee and their recent volunteer work, highlighting and celebrating how they have given back in their community.
"VTO provided a terrific opportunity to sample volunteer projects in neighborhoods that I ordinarily wouldn't get to experience because the programs run exclusively during work time and require 3+ hours in travel on public transportation. This summer, because of IWBI's new VTO, I got to teach a tennis clinic to disabled kids in East New York and served lunch to (and danced with!) Holocaust survivors in the Kensington section of Brooklyn. I was so inspired by these new experiences, that I took a separate day of PTO to assist with adaptive water skiing for disabled veterans in Bayside, Queens." - Susan Illman, Office of the CEO
We are thrilled to have had the support from IWBI leadership that allowed us to expand our workplace philanthropy program to include VTO. As we grow and learn as an organization, we will continue to seek out new opportunities to improve and grow our culture of wellness, enabling employees to lead fulfilling lives both at and away from their desks.
