Employee-Involvement Ideas PDF Print E-mail


Give As You Earn

Staff can agree to have a specified monthly amount debited directly from their salary and paid to an NPO or community programme, which they have chosen to support. For instance Old Mutual’s “Adopt an Orphan” programme attracted monthly financial commitments from 255 staff members, which helped to support over 350 orphans.

CAF SA has developed a ‘Give As You Earn’ payroll programme that is easy to install and run, and works for any amount of money from as little as ten rands. CAF SA will handle the administration and distribution of the money and audit the NPOs receiving the donations. It can operate in several ways:

  • A specified monthly amount can be directly debited from a person’s salary and paid to any NPO of their choice
  • One or more organisations can be jointly selected by staff and monthly debits pooled togethe


This programme has proved extremely successful since its launch in 2002. Many companies now match their employees’ donations. More than R3 million has been distributed to over 100 different NPOs since its inception.

Absa has a ‘Give As You Earn’ (GAYE) programme which was launched in 2001 to raise funds to combat HIV and AIDS. Over 16% of Absa’s staff contribute to this fund and their contributions are matched by the company. More than R1 100 000 was raised in 2003.


Employee Volunteering

Matched Giving

With Matched Giving time volunteered by employees is matched by a cash donation from the company to the relevant NPO. AngloGold Ashanti’s ‘Hearts of Gold’ programme encourages staff to volunteer their time, which is then matched with cash donations. FirstRand, BPH Billiton and Old Mutual run similar ‘matched giving’ volunteer programmes. Mr Andile Ncontsa, Manager of the Old Mutual Foundation, says this approach is critical to the success of such programmes. “ If the staff are going to make a sacrifice the company should partner their efforts.”


Company-Supported Volunteering

Companies can encourage and support employee volunteering by:

  • Giving some time off during office hours to work on particular projects
  • Providing materials or transport
  • Award Schemes


Recognising and valuing your staffs’ volunteer activities through an award scheme is an effective way to support and promote employee volunteering. For instance Absa has a community category in its Prestige Awards, which are given in recognition of an outstanding contribution to community upliftment.



Examples of other successful employee-involvement projects addressing the social problems resulting from HIV and AIDS

Afrox

Afrox has a community involvement programme that focuses on homes for orphans and vulnerable children with over 125 employee-driven projects which help over 13 500 such children. The United Nations identified Afrox’s programme as a model for community-business involvement.


FirstRand

FirstRand launched its Volunteers Programme in 2002 to encourage and support the volunteer work that many of its employees were already doing within the community. The programme has a 40-member volunteer committee that offers ongoing support and ideas as well as ensuring that employees are happy with their involvement, whether it is giving money or time to community projects. A Volunteers website allows employees to share experiences and ideas and encourages other employees to become involved. In the first six months of 2004 employees donated more than R800 000. This was matched by FirstRand and given to various projects including orphanages and feeding schemes.