Volunteering for a Better Workplace: The Science Behind Employee Wellbeing

Missy Peck (She/They): Welcome, William! I'm happy to have you here. To start off, I would love to learn how you got to where you are. What led you to this area of research on work and wellbeing?

William Fleming: Thanks for having me, Missy. I got here from a couple of different routes. First, I’ve always been passionate about health and improving people's lives, which has led me to focus as a researcher on wellbeing in this area. I have a natural disposition to be concerned about this.

My training as a sociologist is also a factor. One of the main topics covered in sociology is work and labor. There’s a natural alignment there. I’ve always been concerned about how good people's lives are, and my sociological interest in work combined with this passion.

I’m here to talk about some research that examines specific practices that can improve how people feel at work and how they experience their jobs. I got into this through a bit of opportunity. When I started my PhD, I gained access to data that allowed me to study work and wellbeing together with a sociological outlook. It's a mixture of my passions, my training, and a bit of luck.

Missy Peck (She/They): That sounds ideal. You're doing what you love.

William Fleming: Yes.

Missy Peck (She/They): Can you highlight some key findings from your research on the psychological and physiological benefits of volunteering?

William Fleming: Sure. I should explain how I ended up looking into employee volunteering. My interest is in work wellbeing. I was seeing various organizational interventions advertised in the name of employee wellbeing but felt increasingly cynical about their effectiveness.

So I started looking into different kinds of practices. I began a study to evaluate various strategies. As I went through this, volunteering came up. Initially, it didn't seem to be about improving how people feel at work and their stress levels, but when I looked into it, I found it was about changing individuals’ behaviors. It aimed to engage them in their organizational life and externally. It fit well in my study with individual-level practices, which focuses on improving wellbeing by changing workers' behaviors and mindsets.

In this study, I used data from about 50,000 employees across 250 companies in the UK and evaluated these programs. Volunteering was the only practice in this study that showed benefits.

This is compared to mindfulness programs, digital wellness apps, stress management training, and time management training, which are popular initiatives among wellbeing and HR teams. The only one showing benefits for indicators related to stress, wellbeing, mental health, and job evaluations was volunteering. In a study with many null findings, having one specific intervention show positives was interesting. That’s how I became interested in volunteering as a workplace practice.

Missy Peck (She/They): So you found that volunteering stood out as having a true impact compared to more traditional wellbeing practices.

William Fleming: Yes, in some ways it's surprising. I’ve received press coverage of this study, and most headlines frame it as a big surprise, but I wasn’t surprised. Many popular strategies don’t engage with working conditions and how people experience work. They try to improve how people feel in isolation from what's going on. Volunteering has opportunities to change how people experience their job by enhancing the impact they can have and making the work more meaningful.

It also teaches new skills and fosters new relationships or provides a break from everyday job routines. Whether it's every week, every couple of weeks, or over a long period, doing something different can feel good.

Missy Peck (She/They): It's fascinating to see data validating that connection. I want to focus on stress levels, a big factor in employees' days, especially in a hybrid environment. Remote in office, stress manifests in different ways. What did you learn about volunteering and how that helps with mood and stress levels?

William Fleming: I think that this last point I mentioned can give you a break from everyday work. More importantly, when we think of the main theoretical models of stress, it's the output from a lack of balance between job demands and job resources. The demands include expectations, tasks, hours, and cognitive skills. The resources are what you have to cope, such as training, colleagues, time, and energy. If you don't have a balance, that's when you feel stressed. Volunteering can enhance your resources in multiple ways, such as teaching you skills, tightening relationships with colleagues, or if your job has more meaning, leading to greater engagement, enthusiasm, and passion for the work. It enhances resources even if it’s not addressing the demands.

Missy Peck (She/They): When you think about classical ways to reduce stress, like going for a walk, it’s interesting with volunteering because you’re getting away from work with your colleagues in a way still associated with your work. You’re having that great experience away from your regular work related to your work.

William Fleming: It shows that it's not the demands of having to do the job and constantly produce that causes stress. Colleagues work together as a team, and this is how you get through it all. Those relationships are valuable and can be positively experienced.

Missy Peck (She/They): Did you find in your research that it helped build positive associations with colleagues and the workplace?

William Fleming: Yes. Survey data can be a bit stunted, but one of the outcomes is an improvement in team collaboration, the ability to work with others. It shows that those relationships developed in other contexts can help how you work together.

Missy Peck (She/They): With growing Gen Z and millennial workforces, there’s increased importance around purpose. What is important for companies to foster a sense of purpose among their employees, particularly with volunteering?

William Fleming: I'm an idealist. I don’t need to work for a boss. Employers have a duty to provide a sense of meaning in life and contribute to society. Our jobs are the main way we do this. We are part of the economy, ensuring everything keeps spinning.

This is probably the most meaningful thing people do for the world. However, this isn't always clear and can be taken away if jobs lack meaning and seem personal. There’s an ideal, maybe a more utopian idea there, but that doesn't fly with hard-nosed business executives.

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Missy Peck (She/They): It's a nice idea. There's academic evidence showing the business benefits of increasing meaning in work and feeling a sense of purpose at work. Employees who feel this are able to work more efficiently, produce more, and stay in the job longer. There's a clear business case for caring about this as well as it being a nice idea. There's something to please the benign and the more hard-nosed.

William Fleming: You're pursuing your dreams. I work in volunteering and social impact; we have a blast at work organically. Not everybody has that. Volunteering helps them to have a good time at work.

William Fleming: Joining helps you understand that you are a part of the economy, chipping in and doing different bits. That's not always clear. We can help people draw those lines together. There are big benefits for the people doing the jobs and for their employers from joining those dots.

Missy Peck (She/They): In some advanced programs, the employer is very clear on their purpose, and those volunteer efforts are centered around that purpose. Everybody has this collective purpose that they get to feel good about together. That can increase your sense of purpose in the workplace.

William Fleming: The best chance for success is where volunteering opportunities align with the overarching aims and purpose of the organization and match the values and skills of the employees. If it's something completely different, it can bring its own positives. For longer-term success, it's about integration and aligning values.

Missy Peck (She/They): You mentioned traditional mindfulness programs and stress training not comparing when it came to volunteering in your research. Would you advise that companies shift away from those things?

William Fleming: I would not recommend those more traditional well-being programs. My colleagues and I put together a document called the Work Wellbeing Playbook of Workplace Interventions with the Wellbeing Movement. We've done a huge review of all the academic evidence, compiled it, and pulled out recommendations on how to improve employee well-being. Most of those recommendations are about improving jobs, enhancing autonomy, and making jobs more meaningful. I think the other types of initiatives come at the individual level. They try to change the worker, not the workplace. They imply that we can improve how people feel and their ability to cope with work without changing the underlying causes. I think I'm happy to not support those practices. Volunteering is supported by my research evidence showing benefits.

Missy Peck (She/They): Every company is a little bit different. The suite of well-being support services they have for their employees may vary, but volunteering should be a tried-and-true one for everyone.

William Fleming: We can improve people's experience of their jobs by involving the people who do the jobs in how they can be made better. For some people, maybe there’s a bureaucratic system to go through, or a terrible IT system, or feedback only comes once a year. That is contextual, but the process of finding out these problems is universal. You can just ask people and work out the solutions. Organizations can think, "How do we?" It’s the same process of going through what matters to us and our workforce. The endpoint is slightly different, but how you get there is a universal approach.

Missy Peck (She/They): We need to listen because everybody's perspective is different. I couldn't begin to tell you what a biochemist's workday is like or an engineer's. But we can listen to people and ensure that we have diverse input on how we're designing not just our volunteering programs but also our overall well-being programs.

William Fleming: Listening is really important. It’s harder when you have 100,000 employees all over the globe, but it can be broken down into different sites. You're right.

Missy Peck (She/They): There can be challenges when trying to put a program together. From your perspective, what are some challenges companies might face when integrating volunteering into their overall well-being strategies? How can they plan to overcome those?

William Fleming: There are a few big challenges. One is getting leaders to buy into it and realize the importance. Another is aligning with what the organization does and what's relevant to it and its employees. People have limited capacity to contribute, and there’s also the issue of employment relations. How well do managers and their direct reports work together? What are the relationships between top-level management and middle-level management? If these relationships aren't good, offering volunteering time may not work.

There's gonna be a distrust of anything. If you hate your boss, you're gonna distrust anything he sent to you. I think considering these relationships is important.

I think all of these problems can be solved. We've already spoken about aligning volunteering or opportunities with the organizational goals and values. Also, aligning with their business functions so that if there are volunteering options, it actually matches up with what they're doing.

If you're in healthcare settings, maybe the volunteering options should be relevant to that. Or if you're in an organization that is trying to improve the natural environment or causing harm to it, maybe the volunteering opportunities should be linked to that. Also, understanding employees' values and what matters most to them both personally and in their communities is important. In certain cities, there will be more apparent issues than others, and understanding those issues and trying to help will be key.

I'm also interested in the skills of people. If you’ve trained for decades to get to a certain role, you have all this expertise, and it's about being able to share that, which will be beneficial.

Missy Peck (She/They): And upscale that for where people are interested.

William Fleming: Yeah, definitely. It can be aligned with some learning and development. Sometimes it can become a bit tick-boxy, but I think it can all be matched up.

William Fleming: There are also practical things that could be done, like allowing volunteering during working time. I know sometimes this happens during onboarding, or there might be a little day out for social impact, but actually setting aside time for an hour or two in a month or a week shows that this is valued and that it does matter. It can also provide a respite break.

William Fleming: Finally, organizations can try to improve working conditions and relationships and enhance respect and trust at work. All of this will help the organizational culture and how people feel, and it can improve how work is done. Volunteering can be a part of improving things but can also help get to that place.

Missy Peck (She/They): Some of these are big, complex problems to solve that take time. But centering back to the listening piece and not assuming what your employee workforce wants to do is critical. You may have people who work at a computer all day; that doesn't mean that's how they want to volunteer. They may want to go outside and do something totally different.

Missy Peck (She/They): The listening piece you mentioned is critical. One other thing I wanted to drill in on is that this is a relevant and often complex challenge for companies when they're trying to grow or roll out a brand new volunteering program. You mentioned leadership involvement. Can you share more about what good looks like with leadership involvement?

William Fleming: I think probably the most important thing would be to see your boss there doing it as well. It can be an opportunity to level some of these natural organizational hierarchies. If you happen to be building solar lamps alongside the CEO and actually get to have a chat about the local community and your personal lives, this type of interaction will improve social capital in the organization and improve relationships.

William Fleming: For me, I think that's the most striking thing that could happen. Long term, it might be more about emphasizing the value of it to the organization, perhaps through company reports discussing the actions they're taking to improve employees' jobs and how they're doing compared to previous years.

William Fleming: This could be similar to the process that happens with social impact, where actions are reported externally and internally, and successes are celebrated. It might take convincing, but some of the business case arguments we’re discussing today can help get there as well.

Missy Peck (She/They): We often see that manifest as very clear messaging on the company website and in the ESG report they put out every year that this is critical to the business. They hear messaging from top leadership about that. The point you made about physically seeing them volunteer alongside employees is impactful. That can turn someone from a casual volunteer into a lifelong volunteer, acting as a catalyst in their volunteering experience.

Missy Peck (She/They): You mentioned the importance of the boss. That's easy to miss depending on the employee, but for most employees, what their manager tells them is important. When there’s a volunteer time-off policy, and your actual boss is saying, "Hey, go volunteer," that can have a bigger impact than seeing the CEO say that it’s important to volunteer.

William Fleming: One of the challenges is an interesting paper on volunteering in the U.S. One challenge is around stigma participation, whether it’s because you’re shirking work or avoiding responsibility. That is actually a big barrier to overcome, and steps can be taken to address that.

Missy Peck (She/They: Some of the steps that I've seen companies take to cement who we are. You've got your volunteer time off policy. We're investing in that, and some of the incredible companies we work with have volunteering or social impact as part of every manager's review. That's part of their performance. If they're judged on five things that are part of their core job, they know they're going to need to speak about how they gave back, how their team gave back, and how they wove that into their work. Things like that are going to move a program forward beyond just the grassroots, manual efforts of having an event.

William Fleming: Yeah, seeing it as part of something that the organization does.

Missy Peck (She/They: It's who we are. Looking to the future, what do you see as the future of corporate volunteering in the context of employee well-being?

William Fleming: I think there are two avenues which are most important. Digital platforms are one way to move forward. They offer flexibility for organizations trying to align values and purpose, but also for employees, allowing them to match their interests with what they want to do, and around the time constraints they face.

It seems like a natural progression. It can improve lives and align with what people want, while also helping to connect nonprofits and charities with a willing volunteer base. The second avenue I’m interested in is skill-based volunteering. It's about matching people's experiences and helping them use those skills in relevant settings. Pro bono work that lots of professionals do can be considered volunteering. If you're an accountant helping a small local charity with their tax returns, that's a good example, or if you're a lawyer doing pro bono work. It enhances the value and purpose of your work.

Missy Peck (She/They: We could talk all day on a separate podcast about skills-based volunteering.

William Fleming: Hopefully, in a few years, I'll have another study on that.

Missy Peck (She/They: The interesting thing with skills-based volunteering is that maybe it's pro bono. Maybe you're an accountant lending your services to do some good in the world. Another trend we're seeing with skills-based volunteering is the flip side. We want our employees to be more digitally adept, upskill in this area or that area, or improve communication skills. Part of solving that is engaging in skills-based volunteering where they are both learning and teaching at the same time. Those are some innovative programs we've seen.

Missy Peck (She/They: Totally agree with you on the platform side. A long time ago, everyone was just reinventing the wheel. Being a CSR practitioner is a specific job, and it's a close community because we understand each other. Having ways to scale and learn best practices, whether through a platform or network, is key as companies grow and their programs mature.

William Fleming: It seems like a way to bring everyone together and improve together.

Missy Peck (She/They: Yeah, the friends you make in CSR are absolutely for life.

William Fleming: I know! When I came to the conference early in the year, it seemed like everyone knew each other.

Missy Peck (She/They: Yeah, it's almost like a reunion. Can you share some studies of successful employee volunteer programs that have shown benefits to employees?

William Fleming: I think there are two seminal studies that made a splash in this area. One was about ten years ago and looked at various types of volunteering, being the first to link volunteering activities over time with job engagement and how meaningful work was across multiple organizations in the U.S. It showed great benefits, linking volunteering to job absorption, which measures how engaged you are with your daily work. This leads to improvements in task performance and reduces counterproductive behavior.

The study also showed that volunteering helps people improve their subjective sense of performance and productivity, and it improves people's citizenship behavior. The work of volunteering helps people be better in their communities and the world.

That was a seminal study since many research studies use survey data and don't track things over time. The study by Jessica Rodell did, so it was exceptional. More recently, research at Columbia Business School looked at retention. They involved all new employees at huge banks in Latin America, engaging in a one-day impact training where they went into schools and tracked it over a couple of years. They showed that those who participated were 50% less likely to leave their job over time.

This demonstrates clear business benefits for productivity. This was a one-day activity.

Missy Peck (She/They: It was one activity, and then...

William Fleming: Yes, just one day. The benefits show that continuing engagement and practice will bring greater benefits, helping improve people's alignment with the organization and their feelings about their work. These two studies are landmark studies that raise the business case and show benefits for employees.

Missy Peck (She/They: Okay, so super smart scientist question for you on how to practically apply this. We work with companies who want to show that volunteering impacts retention. They want to assign a coefficient for turnover loss and show how volunteering saved them this year. What things do they need to consider when putting this together? Is it as simple as tracking employees who volunteered and seeing who’s still here a year later, or should they consider other things for a more true experiment?

William Fleming: It's a little trickier. You need a workforce that hasn't all engaged in it. You need a counterfactual: how can we know what would have happened if these people didn’t volunteer? With the social impact day, you randomize it, so half don’t participate. You need this comparison to see the difference between people who were allowed to volunteer and those who weren't.

William Fleming: Rather than comparing who participates and who doesn't, you compare the people who had access to volunteering with those who didn’t.

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