What I've learned about employee engagement….. and why I still want to keep learning
Employee engagement is about how people experience an organisation - from their first awareness to their working life. I've learned that charity partners have a significant part to play, from bringing connection, creativity, wellbeing and community impact into the workplace to strengthen culture and business outcomes.
Employee engagement has followed me through every stage of my career, from employer brand to charity partnerships and service design. Each perspective has shown why feeling valued, connected and able to make a difference matters. Those lessons and the gaps I still see are why I want to learn how charities and businesses can continue to work together better, not only for each other's benefit but for the wider community.
In newspaper recruitment advertising, working with big employers and advertising agencies, I understood it through the lens of the employer brand. This was about communicating the "tangibles" an employer could offer prospective employees like good pay, gym membership, holidays, and the "intangibles" like culture, values, vision and vision. Developing a strong brand has a purpose to recruit and retain.
When I moved into corporate partnership development I started to see another side of it. I was working with people responsible for corporate social responsibility and sustainability. This could be in a full time role, or as a senior leader having ownership of CSR within the business. My role from the charity side was to identify meaningful opportunities for volunteering, skills sharing and collaboration, to ensure that these opportunities were delivered.
Corporate partners make significant and sometimes transformational donations through corporate gifts and staff fundraising. This matters a great deal but the value of sharing time and knowledge to build relationships shouldn't be underestimated.
I learned that the best examples of partnership working weren’t about just finding something for employees to do so an objective could be crossed off. As part of wider engagement and fundraising programmes, here are just a handful of examples of the day to day support offered by corporate partners.
Martin Sloan at Brodies shared their expert knowledge with Maggie's to untangle the complexities and minimise the uncertainty ahead as the GDPR was being rolled out.
First Direct in Hamilton supported major event participant logistics and stewardship by tapping into their teams’ systems and communication skills.
Morgan Stanley’s Glasgow team recruited a battalion of volunteers to decorate Glasgow Children’s Hospital and their innovation team developed apps for children to play and learn from.
I grew to understand that a charity partnership needs intensive co-ordination and management from the corporate partner’s side. If this isn't someone’s day-job, it could offer them the opportunity to learn new skills and network with new people within their organisation. When someone brought their creativity or initiative to a challenge, the impact was obvious. Contributing to real change in the community helped them feel valued, and that feeling would carry straight back into their work.
In contrast to this, I’ve also experienced the other side where partnerships were perceived as transactional. The appraisal time scramble for volunteering opportunities is a classic example of this. The businesses were not thinking closely enough about the needs of the charity or of their people's experience. Who really wants to volunteer just to meet an appraisal criteria?
Later, at Service Design Academy I saw things from yet another angle.
The SDA team was passionate about bringing design into the workplace, working with HR teams to think differently about employee experience. Consultant Kim Anderson was clear about the language used - it should be “people” rather than “employee” experience. Seeing someone only through the lens of their job takes away the richness of who they are. A more human approach recognises the person behind the role, their values, motivations and lived experience instead of reducing them to a narrow work‑based identity.
Experience, engagement and partnership
From what I have learned in these different contexts, there are two question that businesses should ask themselves about their people's experience:
How do people experience an organisation from their initial awareness through applying, joining, and ultimately feeling valued and able to make a meaningful difference?
What factors along that journey shape whether they are engaged with the organisation enough to stay, contribute and thrive?
The critical question for charities is:
What part can we take in making this happen in partnership with businesses?
It’s about people knowing that they have been empowered to make a difference in their communities, enabled by their company. They can do good, feel good and (optionally) look good. Because employee engagement can be much more than a transaction between a company looking for volunteering opportunities and a charity looking for volunteers.
Not giving and taking, but partnership
I believe charities and businesses have so much untapped potential to do more together. It’s about the strategic sharing of resources for good - not just giving from business and taking from charities.
When charities bring their services into the workplace, they can improve wellbeing, spark new ways of thinking and strengthen connection. They can act as genuine business partners, helping organisations solve real challenges, support their people, build resilience and help to create workplaces where everyone can thrive.
Developing partnerships that create better outcomes for communities and better experiences for the employees for every partner should be the aim. When for profit and not for profit businesses work closely, both sets of employers should see stronger engagement with their people.
These are the conversations I’m excited to have and keep learning from.
How can your charity or business can build stronger partnerships? Please get in touch with me to find out more maralyn@partnershipbee.co.uk