In the evolving landscape of work, one trend is gaining serious traction: a cultural shift from focusing on attendance to driving deeper engagement. This isn’t about just showing up — it’s about showing up with purpose. Gone are the days when productivity was measured by who clocked in earliest or stayed the latest. Today, thriving workplace cultures are those that emphasize active participation, innovation and resilience over mere presence.
Top 3 Drivers of Investment in Employee Volunteering Programs
According to Benevity’s 2025 State of Corporate Purpose Report, the top three drivers for companies investing in employee volunteering programs are boosting employee engagement, increasing community impact and fostering culture and connection. These priorities are gaining momentum: in its 2024 State of Corporate Volunteering report, Benevity data revealed a 57% year-over-year increase in the rate of global employee volunteering participation and a 41% year-over-year increase in the total number of volunteer hours dedicated by companies and their people. The combination of these data points tells a clear story: volunteering is not only good for communities, it's an essential element of today’s corporate culture.
Work, for most of us, is a team sport. And like any high-performing team, success hinges on trust, collaboration, and a shared sense of purpose. That’s why leading companies are actively designing environments that support these qualities — where employees are encouraged to share ideas, take initiative and meaningfully engage with one another. By prioritizing engagement over attendance, organizations are unlocking new levels of energy, motivation, and impact across their teams.
One of the most effective (and often underleveraged) strategies for driving this kind of engagement? Employee volunteering.
Why Engagement Matters More Than Ever
The modern workforce — especially younger generations — is no longer satisfied with a transactional work environment. Employees want to feel connected to their colleagues, their company’s mission, and the broader community. This sense of connection and alignment with purpose isn’t just nice to have; it’s a critical component for a high-performing organization.
High engagement levels are linked to improved performance, increased innovation, better retention, and greater adaptability. In contrast, a culture that rewards mere presence can breed disengagement, stagnation and burnout. Engagement turns work into a shared mission, not just a set of tasks.
Volunteering is an opportunity for companies to create connections and engagement. The Benevity State of Corporate Volunteering study revealed that since the onset of the pandemic, there has been a 15% increase in the prevalence of companies running volunteering initiatives as part of their employee engagement programs.
Company Volunteer Programs as a Business Strategy
According to the latest research from Benevity Impact Labs, volunteering isn’t just a nice gesture — it’s a business investment. An overwhelming 94% of companies reported that volunteering helps build business resilience. That’s likely because volunteering fosters teamwork, strengthens culture and encourages employees to step into roles and situations that develop leadership and problem-solving skills.
Furthermore, the 2022 Benevity Talent Retention Study showed companies see a 52% lower turnover rate among newer employees who participate in corporate purpose programs including volunteering, micro-actions and workplace giving.
Yet in the U.S., only 49% of companies offer community volunteer programs as a benefit, according to the 2024 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Employee Benefits survey.
More than 23 million employee volunteer hours were tracked on the Benevity platform in 2024, and yet this represents only a fraction of the impact companies could achieve if corporate volunteer programs were more pervasive.
Crucially, volunteering builds emotional connection — to colleagues, to the community and to the company’s values. When people volunteer together, they break down silos, build trust and often gain a renewed sense of meaning in their work. It humanizes the workplace in a way few other activities can.
Open-Choice Volunteering: Empowering Employee Participation
Some corporate community service programs rely on company-driven opportunities, while other employee volunteering programs embrace open-choice volunteering — allowing employees to support causes that matter most to them. Having broad options and in some cases the autonomy to choose can increase participation because it accommodates individual passions while aligning with collective goals.
Benevity research confirms this: when there are more options available to employees — like company-created and employee-created volunteer opportunities — participation increases on average 12x. Survey data reveals additional benefits to volunteering, such as strengthening community resilience (97% agree).
Benevity data from the 2025 State of Corporate purpose study also shows that virtual volunteering is rebounding, rising from 48% to 57% — possibly reflecting more normalized hybrid work and a desire for remote-access engagement.
What’s more, opportunities for more personalized volunteering can help drive diversity of thought, create richer team experiences and broaden the organization’s impact across multiple communities and causes.
From "IN" to "ALL IN" On Workforce Volunteering
Physical presence alone is no longer the marker of contribution. Employees can be "in the office" but not truly all in. The companies that will thrive in the future are those that build cultures where people are emotionally invested, psychologically safe and purposefully connected — to each other and to the world beyond their walls.
“We’re in a time when business is facing an array of threats and leaders are seeking ways to build more resilience into their companies,” adds Sona Khosla. “Employee volunteering hits at the heart of the transformation many companies need to make to remain resilient and relevant and reinforces the kind of workplace people are proud to be part of.”
So go “all in” on your employee volunteering strategy, offering company- and employee-created volunteer opportunities, big and small, to engage your workforce. Prioritize team volunteering as a core part of your culture strategy — not just a “nice-to-do” activity once a year, but a regular, supported, and celebrated part of your employee experience. An emerging employee volunteer best practice is providing paid time off for volunteering. The same SHRM survey shows that companies offering paid time off for volunteering is on the rise, reaching 28% in 2024. The bottom line, when you create workforce opportunities for shared experiences rooted in doing good, you create optimal conditions for high-performing teams.
