In case you haven’t heard April is National Volunteer Month!  With spring in the air, it is the perfect time to incorporate company-wide volunteer events into your employee recognition program or recognize employees for their individual contributions to their communities.

Recent growing awareness for skills-based volunteering has me thinking about some of the opportunities and challenges employers face when trying to implement these types of volunteer projects.  Some of these are addressed in this interesting article by Forbes.com contributor Tom Watson.  He notes that providing a combination of “extra-hands” events and skill-based volunteering can create opportunities for everyone to get involved.  While either can enhance the employee’s work-life balance, skill-based projects seem to provide an even greater benefit.

When done correctly, corporate promotion and recognition of individual, skills-based volunteering can lead to a happier, more engaged group of employees.  Company-organized volunteer events are a part of Rally Rewards, QIC’s employee recognition program – and many associates enjoy participating.  After reading Watson’s article I was interested to see what types of individual volunteer activities my coworkers are involved in.

I solicited responses via email survey and was delighted to learn of the diverse and meaningful ways QIC employees contribute their time and skill to make a difference in their communities.  It’s very uplifting to discover how many wonderful activities my coworkers are involved in away from the office, and I would like to share some of their stories with you in coming posts – so stay tuned!

In the meantime, if you’re contemplating a company service project, my previous post – Community Service and Employee Recognition offers a few tips for project organizers and a brief account of one of QIC’s volunteer projects.

How’s your employee recognition program working?  Contact us today – we’d be glad to lend a helping hand towards making it even better.  Let’s Rally!