People give back for a myriad of different reasons. Whether it is because they are passionate about a cause, love to pay it forward, or they like how it makes them feel afterwards. Or, it could be because of a sense of obligation and they do it to save face in front of their coworkers. Whatever the reason, you can use philanthropy in the office to increase employee teamwork and morale, which then increases work performance – even in the guy who did it because he felt he had to.

Where to Help

One way to encourage giving back is to choose to do something that aligns with your company’s culture. This could even be something you see daily in your community that you might not know exactly how to help or how to make a difference. For instance, if you live in an area with a high homeless population, especially veterans, you can rally your employee troops to help them.

Arizona Stand Down in Phoenix, Arizona is a great example of this. They created a backpack drive and collected items such as mini toiletries, socks, warm clothing, batteries, and other items needed to survive outside that could fit in a backpack.They then held a day where they invited all the homeless vets to come in and receive their filled backpacks, sign up for veteran services (brilliant idea) and even had doctors volunteer their time for a checkup.

This started out from one person seeing a need and rallying not only her company, but also the community to come together and help homeless vets. It is now an annual two-day event that greatly increases employee morale. There was a bit of competition to see which teams could bring in the most items – people love gamification – and this strategy not only helped the homeless, but boosted employee morale and emphasized to the employees how small actions can have big rewards.

Volunteering During Thanksgiving

During the Thanksgiving season you often start to think about what you are most thankful for. This could be your family and friends, a new promotion, or could be having your blog post go viral. Being thankful for the small things in our lives helps us to spread that gratefulness to others. During this holiday season, nonprofit organizations work on donations for food banks and the Angel Trees go up in shopping malls everywhere.

Ask your staff what they would like to do as a team. Everyone likes to be heard and listen to their ideas on ways to give back. One great idea that an employee came up with was having a company Happy Hour. For every three cans of food they brought in, they received a drink or a raffle ticket, their choice. The raffle tickets were for items the company had collected or donated to the event. You know people love to win things!

Most people tend to congregate around the kitchen, whether at work or at home. Cooking instills teamwork in a rather effortless way. Many people can’t cook for the holidays for many different reasons. Your company can adopt a family or two and your staff can get together to cook the meals and then deliver them to that family. Seeing someone’s eyes light up when you drop off a home-cooked meal is really quite special. This might be a great activity to increase employee morale this Holiday season, especially if you have a small staff.

Whatever you choose to do, by encouraging employees to give back, you not only increase employee morale, but help those less fortunate. That’s a win-win in my book. 

 Joel Comm is an Internet pioneer, New York Times Best-Selling author of The AdSense Code and Twitter Power 2.0 and serial entrepreneur. An expert on harnessing the power of social media and mobile applications to expand reach and engage in active relationship marketing, Joel is a sought-after public speaker who leaves his readers and audiences inspired, entertained, and armed with strategic tools to create a new media campaign that will explode their business. Joel shares regularly on his podcast, The Joel Comm Show and on his blog at www.JoelComm.com. 

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