By Ray Birch
CARMEL, Ind.—One company that boosted its employees’ community involvement by more than 300% in just one year is sharing how it did it.
It involved the launch of a formal community involvement program that includes a strong communication plan, research, metrics and incentives—including eight hours of paid volunteer time off.
The work Allied Solutions and its employees have done is included its recently released, first-ever Community Impact Report. As CUToday.info has reported, some credit unions and state associations have also been compiling similar impact reports.
“Allied Solutions saw a significant increase in employee engagement in 2023 following the implementation of a strategy to enhance our impact in the community,” said Kara Seward, second VP of corporate communications and community engagement/HR at Allied Solutions. “We saw a 317% increase in employee volunteerism and invested more than $1.36 million with community nonprofits. The Community Impact Report is a way for Allied to recognize its employee volunteers—and also some of our strong community partners.”
Seward said the report provided Allied Solutions with an opportunity to reflect on all of the work and impact that its employees have achieved within their communities.
Instilling Pride
“The report was released at an all-employee company meeting,” Seward said. “It really instilled pride in our employees.”
Seward said the effort began when Allied adopted “community” as one of its core corporate values.
“We really wanted to make sure that we instilled employee voices in the work that we are doing in our communities,” she said. “We did research and we talked with employees about what they care about, what causes are they most interested in, what motivates them to give back to their community. We used all of that to develop our community engagement strategy, which is also focused on retaining our employees—making sure they feel valued and feel like they have an opportunity to contribute, outside of their day-to-day work.”
Kara Seward
More ‘Intentional’
The big increase in employee volunteerism took place last year.
“This is part of our strategy of being much more intentional about offering volunteer opportunities in all of our office locations,” Seward said. “We also rolled out a new employee benefit that gives eight hours of volunteer time off to eligible employees. So, through both our PTO and the additional community activities and volunteer activities—that is where we saw that 317% increase.”
Seward explained Allied began surveying staff about volunteer work in 2022.
“We have always been philanthropic in our communities. We had some volunteerism, but our executive leadership was really interested in seeing whether we could activate that more with our employees,” she said. “We started the research to figure out what our employees wanted to do in terms of community involvement and really living our corporate value of community. We followed it up with a survey this year to see what the engagement was year over year.”
Framework Developed
Seward said the effort has given Allied Solutions a framework around how the company makes decisions regarding its community involvement.
“We would love to be able to give money or give volunteer time to every organization that approaches us,” Seward told CUToday.info. “However, we're trying to be more strategic and intentional about how we do that so we can make the greatest impact with causes that mean the most to our organization and to our employees.”
Allied Solutions has now established giving guidelines around key funding priorities and community priorities.
“They must be a registered 501(c)3, distribute their services equitably within their communities—establishing guidelines that help us make a determination when someone approaches us. We're evaluating how we engage with organizations,” Seward said.
New Committee
The company also created the Community Engagement Committee.
“That came out of some survey feedback,” she said. “We really felt, through the survey process and focus groups, that our employees were giving us some really tangible feedback that was beneficial. So, we wanted to keep that feedback loop going. Therefore, in 2023 we established the Community Engagement Committee.”
The committee includes representatives from all of Allied Solutions’ office locations, including some remote employees.
“My team is headquartered here in our Carmel office,” Seward noted. “It's an opportunity for our employees, across our locations, to say ‘We've been approached by an organization,’ or ‘I know an organization that's making a great impact in our community’… It's a great feedback loop for us to share information and resources between all of us and continue to grow that engagement.”
A Key Lesson
Seward told CUToday.info a key lesson Allied Solutions has learned through the new process is that community involvement is “all about the employees.”
“You really need to have their voice built into what you're doing because they're the ones who are going to be giving their time,” she said. “And it is so important to measure what you are doing—with this approach we can now actually measure our community involvement efforts.”