Software engineer Wayne Allen never imagined putting in an arduous workday before falling asleep in the back of a rental truck.
Then again, he never expected to be paid to volunteer during a major national disaster. For 12 days after Hurricane Katrina hit last month, he set up networks and installed laptops in Red Cross shelters as part of Intel Corp.’s all-volunteer team.
“It made me feel so fortunate,” the 27-year-old said.
About 8 percent of employers gave workers paid time off to join Hurricane Katrina relief, according to an online survey by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM).
While disasters spark an outpouring of aid, the hurricane response was part of a trend toward encouraging volunteerism as a way for companies to burnish their images and promote teamwork while making themselves more attractive to employees, especially younger workers, experts said.
“It signals the employer has a conscience,” said Janet Reid, principal partner in Global Lead Management Consulting.
Big companies are more likely than smaller ones to offer paid time off to help others, according to the latest annual survey by SHRM. Thirteen percent of companies offer the feel-good benefit, fewer than last year when 19 percent offered the benefit, the 2005 survey found.
The data contradicts workplace experts such as Reid and others, who say the practice is growing as a way to appeal to Gen-Xers and the younger Generation Y, the biggest demographic bulge since the Baby Boomers. Generation Y’s oldest members are in their early 20s and entering the workforce.
“They have been doing volunteer work all along” in their schools, said Mary Clark, executive director of nonprofit advisory group Winning Workplaces. “They want to keep that sense of doing something good for the larger society.
“Anybody who’s looking ahead to the Baby Boomers’ retirement can see there is going to be a supply crunch in the workforce,” she added. “Employers are paying attention to what motivates people, and this is the sort of thing that really engages younger employees. It relates to their value system.”
Volunteerism’s appeal isn’t limited to the younger set.
W.W. Grainger Inc. international marketing associate Patti Rowles, who is 39, participates in a Red Cross disaster relief program called “Ready When the Time Comes,” for which Grainger, an industrial supplier, is a lead sponsor.
Eighty employees of the Lake Forest-based company volunteered on company time at Red Cross phone banks in Chicago after Hurricane Katrina, logging more than 400 hours.
“I felt the company has its heart in the right place by giving employees an opportunity to give back,” said Rowles, who has assisted flood victims and worked on inner city fire-prevention programs through Grainger.
At computer reseller CDW Corp. in Vernon Hills, company research shows volunteerism is a factor in recruitment, said spokesman Gary Ross.
Employees get to decide whether to use their paid time off for a company-sponsored volunteer event or their own favorite charity.
Among CDW’s projects was a two-week expense-paid trip on company time to Thailand in July to build houses for tsunami victims with Habitat for Humanity. Nine employees were picked by raffle to go.
In the works now is a plan to send CDW employees to the Gulf region to rebuild homes and businesses. Employees voted to finance the project using money the company spends every year on a lavish holiday party–as much as $1 million including the expense of flying workers in from around the country and putting them up in downtown hotels.
“(Employees) want to know the company cares,” Ross said. “It helps them feel good.”
Employers in health and finance industries are among the most likely to offer paid volunteer time off, according to the HR society’s survey.
In the banking industry, North Carolina-based Wachovia Corp. gives employees up to four hours’ paid volunteer time per month, or six days a year.
New York-based clothing designer and marketer Jones Apparel Group Inc. allows paid time off to work on a corporate campaign to improve public schools by supporting teachers. Chief Executive Officer Peter Boneparth plugged the program to analysts in May during an earnings call.
At Intel, which assembled a rotating crew of 200 to provide technology for Hurricane Katrina relief, the effort supports the company’s culture, said spokeswoman Jennifer Greeson. Intel launched a similar tech relief effort after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“We’re results-oriented–we see a problem, we go fix it,” Greeson said. “We encourage risk-taking. So we’re able to go in and make a difference in a situation where things are chaotic and resources are limited.”
Allen, the software engineer, joined Intel’s contingent in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi after responding by e-mail to a posting on the company Web site.
He worked alongside employees from Cisco Systems Inc., Dell Inc. and other tech companies, delivering and maintaining laptops to help evacuees search for housing, process debit card transactions and hunt lost relatives.
The systems they installed in Red Cross shelters cut the time to process paperwork for new arrivals by 82 percent, he said.
Certain images will stay with him forever, Allen added, like his memory of walking through Houston’s Astrodome and seeing a little girl sitting on a cot, holding a poster with a photo of her father and the words, “Have you seen my Dad?”
“You just want to find some way to free up one more computer, one more Red Cross worker. … you just want to keep helping,” he said.
“It made me feel really proud to work for a company that not only provides financial help but also equipment and our time.”
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