How CH2M HILL Engages Employees in Giving Through Skills and Action
By Sarah Ford
For 85% of employers surveyed in America’s Charities 2013 Snapshot Report, keeping workplace giving campaigns fresh and vibrant is a challenge. More than ever, employee expectations of engagement programs have extended beyond matching gift programs and expanded opportunities to give throughout the year to any charity. Employees also want the opportunity to be more directly connected with charities, and they want to join colleagues in doing good inside and outside the walls of the workplace.
At the same time, companies are more strategic than ever about their approach to philanthropy. Looking to engage employees while maximizing their impact, companies are starting to target their resources where they can do the most good by focusing on a handful of causes that best align with their talents.
As a result, employers are now devising overall giving strategies that focus on specific causes and encourage year-round giving, volunteerism, skills-based pro bono services and engagement.
One such example is CH2M HILL, a global leader in engineering with 26,000 employees on six continents. In 2012, CH2M HILL decided to take a step back and revisit its giving strategies. As a result, the CH2M HILL Foundation, which CH2M HILL uses to manage its charitable giving, was relaunched in 2013 with a new board and a more focused mission.
On a mission to support global organizations in its operating countries that develop sustainable communities and inspire the next generation of socially and environmentally responsible leaders, CH2M HILL decided to focus on the following three areas of giving:
- Environmental stewardship;
- STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education; and
- Employee engagement.
Environmental stewardship and STEM make sense for an engineering company like CH2M HILL, but what caught our attention was their focus on employee engagement. “We know with empirical evidence that when our employees have the opportunity to share both their skills sets and their passion for helping others, they generate pride in themselves and in their employer,” says Ellen Sandberg, Executive Director, CH2M HILL Foundation, and Vice President, Community Investment.
Giving Through ActionFor most companies, employee engagement is an outcome the company hopes to achieve as a result of its work. For CH2M HILL, employee engagement is more of a means to achieving that result.
Service has been part of CH2M HILL’s culture since its founding in 1946 and one way employees of CH2M HILL are encouraged to put their passion for giving into action is through CH2M HILL Foundation’s Employee Action Grants and Community Grants programs.
