Giving Compass' Take:

• Irina Tikhonova discusses how CSR programs can help employees create purpose in the work environment. 

• What are the challenges of creating meaningful CSR programs? What are some examples of effective initiatives? 

• Here are five elements of a model of corporate social responsibility. 

Introduce purpose into your existing corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.

This is the easiest entry point. As a CSR program manager, you are already focused on improving engagement. And although CSR programs don’t just focus on purpose, they are in the same cultural arena and job purposing can be a subset of the overall program.

As a CSR manager, find and offer opportunities that any employee can take part in to expand their societal impact through their job.

Become a manager that incorporates activities with purpose.

Empowering managers is extremely important; they have the most influence over groups of employees and have more direct influence than CSR employees. Encouraging managers to incorporate purpose into training, professional development, and everyday tasks is a growing trend.

Historically, there has been a disconnect between purpose in personal and professional life. In your personal life, you choose how to incorporate purpose — such as helping your neighbors, volunteering for a specific cause, or donating to a local organization. At work, you do tasks related your job and that’s it — right?

Data shows that “meaningfulness applies across employees’ full lives, and is driven by finding a connection to the rest of the world through their work.” But where do that meaning and purpose stem from? And to revisit our original question, whose responsibility is it to create an atmosphere that encourages finding purpose in the workplace — the employee or the employer? Spoiler: it is the employer’s responsibility to introduce responsibility into the workplace.

Read the full article on employees volunteering by Irina Tikhonova at 3BL Media.