Aug. 8, 2022 - Employee Engagement Through Volunteering + Beyond the Grasp of Crisis Comms

Here is a recording of the August 2022 monthly member call. Presentation slides are attached.

This call featured:
Joni Fitch, Directory, Community Affairs and Engagement, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
Amy Walker Doane, VP Marketing, Bluegrass Care Navigators
Jim Ylisela, RCG

Employee Egnagement Through Volunteering

• To talk about Goodyear’s Global Week of Volunteering, Join talks about what it looked like before:
  • Goodyear had a long history of supporting communities where it operates
  • Pockets of associate volunteerism existed, but they were skill-based and done in solos. They lacked a cohesive global execution around a campaign
  • It took time to build relationships and learn about existing programs around 2015, 2016
    • This led to Goodyear’s first community engagement strategy
    • Grassroots efforts drove a strong foundation of associate volunteers and leaders who agreed that associates are the company’s best assets
  • Strategy roadmap shifted from CARING for communities to SERVING communities
    • Changing that one word highlighted the action behind this shift

• Opportunities:
  • Develop hosting a day, week or month of volunteerism as a best practice
  • Tap into a strong volunteer base
  • Ask the workforce to engage as a teambuilding exercise
  • Repurpose it as a talent attraction/retention tool
  • Set a goal for the program as a catalyst to develop more ongoing associate volunteers
  • Reached out to closes nonprofit sponsors who needed the help and focused efforts there

• It took about 1.5 years from idea to execution for this week
  • Required research and benchmarking
  • Leadersihp buy-in required they go back again as it didn’t go well the first time.
    • Leader feedback first time was to start small, identify champions, and acknowledge how this work differentiated Goodyear from others in the space
  • They tapped on a project manager and explored new tools
  • They offered workshops for nonprofit leaders internally that gives them the chance to participate in something developmental

• In the early days, it started in Akron where Goodyear is HQ’d. It ended up in 6 countries.
  • The core team included comms, HR, Health & Safety, Wellness, Marketing, Events, Facilities, Legal, Risk, Sustainability, D&I, Project Management, Learning & Development
  • It tapped on 14 community partners and identified 2 associate liasons for each org
  • They also launched a video series for the announcement along with desk drops, a steel drum band (!), fruit in pantries and a community org fair that provided more touchpoints to teach associates about the volunteer opportunities
  • This focused on mid-level managers and did not have a formal volunteer policy

• Today, they’re 5 years into the effort and it is now 100-175 events, 1,500-2,500 volunteers, 40-70 orgs, 5-9,500 hous, 22-32 locations
  • There are comms leads in each region who take lead on these efforts
  • They have ongoing, repeat volunteerism and folks who want to return to the same program each year
    • This also creates stronger nonprofit relationships
  • ERGs tie their goals into volunteer week
  • They also host professional development weeks
    • Instructors for these courses are also learning and development leaders within Goodyear

Beyond the Grasp of Crisis Comms

• Amy’s team was greatly affected by the flash floods in Eastern Kentucky
  • They’ve returnd messaging to a normal cadence and shared how, as a hospice org, they still need support from donors and good samiritans
  • At the end of her initial post in the CLC portal, Amy said she said she’s sharing “in case this gives you pause to think about the worst-case scenario”.
• Jim asks, how prepared was she?
  • Having past crisis experience taught Amy that you get better with practice
  • It’s crucial to compartmentalize.
    • Some of Amy’s first comms about this were from a team member who sent a video of her house surrounded by water.
      • Amy got this message at 4am Thursday morning, and didn’t hear from her for 24-hours
    • Not being able to do anything for her colleague perosnaly, Amy pivoted to focus on a response to team members, patients and more.
      • It tied to the hospice’s mission to provide care no matter what. It was one of the rare moments when that message wasn’t true or appropriate
        • The new, more transparent message was: “Please call us if you’re impacted.” She then realized they had no way to send it out. Instead, they relied on local news who were still operational and had them relay the hospice center’s message.
        • They also realized that, outside of the impacted region, they also had folks worried about colleagues and wondered how they could help.
      • She said that volunteer programs became force multipliers when this happened.
        • They were able to use the volunteer system to have team members from central and northern Kentucky help families in various ways, while team members were able to respond to needs in real time (shopping for affected team mates etc)

Aug. 8, 2022 - Employee Engagement Through Volunteering + Beyond the Grasp of Crisis Comms