Employee Volunteers Research Articles

Motivational Hypnosis as a Tool to Eliminate the Effects of Covid-19 Perception on Employee Motivation

Covid-19's emergence has significantly impacted the world, its workplaces and the motivation of employees. This study aims to determine the impact of how Covid-19 is perceived on employees' intrinsic motivation. It also aims to discover whether a motivational hypnosis session may influence the pandemic's effects, given that hypnosis is a well-known mental intervention that has been used for centuries to treat and help people in domains as varied as therapy, sports, education, and more recently, business. A three-step qualitative experimental study took place, involving ten employee volunteers. The first step was a first questionnaire exploring the effect of their perceptions of Covid-19 on their motivation. A motivational hypnosis session (written to increase employees' intrinsic motivation from the emotional intelligence framework) took place afterwards; the last step was a second questionnaire answered by the workers 48 hours after the session. Results showed that Covid-19 had slightly less of a negative effect on managers' motivation, which was 79% compared to non-executive employees' 87%. The motivational hypnosis session helped only two out of the ten employees to reduce the effects of the way they perceived the pandemic. However, it did have positive impact as it increased employees' intrinsic motivation. Future research on using hypnosis for the benefit of employees should therefore be conducted.

Understanding the Spread of Sustained Employee Volunteering: How Volunteers Influence Their Coworkers’ Moral Identity Work

Employee volunteering has become a common phenomenon in many organizations. However, it is unclear how sustained volunteering spreads between colleagues. Drawing on an empirical study set in the English legal profession, this study examines the processes through which existing employee volunteers influence their coworkers to internalize a volunteer identity. The study yields a theoretical model that specifies how coworkers may identify existing volunteers as moral exemplars. Five forms of social influence emanate, often unknowingly, from these exemplars: encouraging, evoking, edifying, enacting, and exemplifying. These forms of social influence inform coworkers’ microprocess of moral identity work through which they claim a volunteer identity. This study thereby shifts attention from the well-theorized outcomes of moral identities to the largely unexamined social influences on moral identities in the workplace, enriching our understanding of the development of the moral self that is foundational to theories of volunteering and identity.

What drives employee's involvement in corporate volunteering? Bright and dark side of consequences to organization

PurposeThis study assesses the relevance of both individual and contextual factors as an antecedent to employee participation in corporate volunteering (CV) activities and affective organizational commitment and inter-role conflict as an outcome of employee volunteering. This study draws from the functional theory of motivation, social exchange theory and role strain perspective to explain hypothesized relationship of the study constructs.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire survey was administered with 461 employee volunteers who had participated in company-sponsored volunteering programs. The authors adopted structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the study hypotheses.FindingsThe findings from the survey suggest that altruistic motives and organization CV capability will impact employee's participation in CV. The results highlight that employee participation in CV enhances affective organizational commitment, indicating that employee volunteering creates inter-role conflict.Research limitations/implicationsThough the study has identified inter-role conflict as a potentially unfavorable outcome, exploring when and how employee volunteering will create a negative effect will add significant value to organizations to protect the interest of their employees.Practical implicationsThis study provides insights to understand the relative effects of self- and other-oriented motives. The results suggest that organizations have more directed and carefully designed employee volunteering activities to enable more favorable benefits to employees.Originality/valueThis study contributes to expanding the knowledge on the phenomenon of employee volunteering by introducing and empirically validating an integrated framework of antecedents and consequences of employee volunteering.

Structural Equation Modelling to Understand the Impact of Various Components of CSR and the Benefits to Stakeholders

In the last many years academicians and business practitioners have shown their interest in the study of the activities of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This study describes a deeper understanding of the CSR parameters on the benefits to the stakeholders. It explains the direct effect of the various independent variables like ‘Encourage Employee Volunteer - kinds of incentives’, ‘Improve Employee Welfare and Labour Relations’, ‘Companies/Organizations communicate the Policy to the stakeholders’ and ‘Adoption of CSR practices by Companies/Organizations’ on the dependent variable benefits of CSR to the stakeholders. We had also studied the impact of the variables, that is, ‘Encourage “Employee Volunteers”, kinds of incentives’, ‘Companies/Organizations communicate the Policy to the stakeholders’ and ‘Adoption of CSR practices by Companies/Organizations’ on Employee Welfare and Labour Relations. The outcomes of the research model depend on the data collected from 349 employees across local and international organizations in India. The respondents are employees of various organizations working at different levels of management. This study focuses on middle-level managers. The major findings suggest the positive impact of all the activities of CSR on benefits to the stakeholders. Out of the four CSR activities, Adoption of CSR practices by Companies/Organizations is the strongest predictor followed by Employee Welfare and Labour Relations, whereas the CSR activity Encourage ‘Employee Volunteers’, kinds of incentives has no significant impact on benefits to the stakeholders.

When give-back turns to blowback: Employee responses to learning from skills-based volunteering

Skills-based volunteering programs are designed by organizations to enable their employees to donate their job-related skills and develop new ones, while making a positive difference in the community. Although skills-based volunteering is one of the fastest growing trends in corporate citizenship, we know little about how employees respond to it. Using interview data from a financial institution (volunteering managers, n = 2; employee volunteers, n = 27), we explored this research question: How do employees react when volunteering is framed as an avenue for learning? Our findings show that one-third of volunteers expressed anger or defensiveness and ultimately rejected the notion of learning from volunteering; two-thirds reacted with curiosity, using the interview process to make sense of what they learned. These two groups of volunteers reported different attributions about why their firm supports volunteering. Whereas the former group was cynical about their firm’s motivations, the latter believed that the firm’s intentions were altruistic. However, not all of the participants fit neatly into this pattern; for a minority, manager support for volunteering altered the relationship between attributions and acknowledgement of learning. The key contribution of this paper is a theoretical model that explains how employees respond when volunteering is framed as a forum for learning.

Value creation in company–NGO collaboration in corporate volunteering

Purpose This paper aims to examine corporate volunteering as a form of social responsibility carried out by companies in relationships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Applying the value creation concept, the success of such relationships is based on value created between the focal company, its employees engaging in the volunteer work and the collaborating NGO actors representing the beneficiaries of the volunteer work. However, how to meaningfully engage employees and strategically manage company–NGO relationships in corporate volunteering has received less scholarly attention. The study hence asks the question: How is mutual value created in corporate volunteering collaborations between business organizations and NGOs? Design/methodology/approach Two qualitative case studies of company–NGO relationships involved in corporate volunteer programs for social benefit in Poland and Finland are analyzed. Findings Corporate volunteering offers value creation opportunities for each of the three actors in the relationships, namely, the company, the NGO and the employees who participate in the volunteer work. Particularly, employment and volunteering relationships appear to be catalysts for the creation of mutual value in the organizational relationship between a company and NGO. Originality/value The present study contributes to the current understanding of company–NGO relationships by emphasizing the role of individual employee volunteers in creating relationship-level value. The study adds also to existing research on corporate volunteering by identifying the way value is created in company–NGO relationships within corporate volunteering.

Employee Volunteers Unleash Donations

Employee Volunteers Unleash Donations

Employee Volunteerism—Conceptual Study and the Current Situation

The purpose of the study is to analyze employee volunteerism. This issue had not been studied on a broader international level earlier. This research firstly discovers altruism and volunteerism values in the economy. Then, based on the third-party model, observes each part, where participants are the (1) volunteer (employee) (2) company (and its CSR activity) and (3) an external organization, which manages this type of formal volunteerism. Each participant was analyzed through comprehensive analysis using descriptive and inference statistics and classification methods on complex, extensive secondary databases. Altogether, more than 10,000 respondents’ answers are examined from two worldwide surveys, and further ten international statistical indicators and indices are explored. These methods result in volunteer characteristics on a personal level, afterwards in country classification, which provides a cultural comparison of the employee volunteerism. Our findings prove that demographical differences do not, but company-level actions influence the intensity of formal volunteerism. Moreover, three main clusters (formed from 43 countries) show different values. This diversity might partly be caused by measurement fragmentations and lack of internationally accepted definitions and theories. This paper aims to provide a broader overview of the topic, which might be a useful starting point for the forthcoming aggregated conceptualization. Employee volunteers’ behavior arises from the personal value of volunteerism. However, the attendance and intensity of voluntary activity are primarily influenced by the environment (e.g., life period, living and working situation). Employee volunteerism programs are an important and essential part of CSR at the company level, and strongly frames this activity, where employee volunteerism could associate each participant’s interests and improve their values. However, the practices may differ in each country and in each sector. The current pandemic rewrote the traditional volunteerism model and our projection. The last chapter provides a preliminary study about how employee volunteerism could work in this extraordinary, COVID-19 situation.

What University of Alaska Anchorage learned from a M7.1 earthquake

Teaching university students and employees how to react during a damaging earthquake can save lives and prevent injuries. Most earthquakes are over in less than a minute, but the real work of emergency managers begins once everyone climbs out from under their safe place and checks for damage to bodies, buildings and infrastructure. Business recovery and academic continuity can take years. Supplementing uniformed responders with trained employee volunteers can make a huge difference toward recovering quickly. Universities are generally not charged with the role of providing public safety in the same way that government is, so they must train and exercise regularly to get faculty, staff, administrators and even some students to transition quickly during crisis to new responsibilities within an incident command system (ICS) command post or emergency operations centre. During an area-wide emergency like an earthquake, a university campus must be able to run a significant part of its response and recovery efforts on its own, as governments and other institutions around them around will be doing the same — and competing for similar resources. This paper will discuss the advantages and outcomes of providing emergency response training to civilian employees and students, empowering them to become first responders, recovery workers and incident managers to supplement the few professionals paid to fulfil those roles on a full-time basis.

What makes employees participate in volunteering programs? The role of organizational support

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify some of the critical organizational support factors and efforts that facilitate better employee participation in corporate volunteering (CV) programs. There is a growing interest to understand the role of organization in enhancing better employee participation in volunteering programs. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted an empirical investigation with (n = 461) employee volunteers, who participated in company sponsored volunteering programs. The authors tested the hypothesized relationship using structural equation modelling (SEM). Findings The SEM results indicate that cultural fit, organizational CV communication and implementation of CV programmes facilitate better employee participation. Research limitations/implications This study provides insights for organizations in terms of increased internal communication and alignment of organizational values with CV programmes to attract better employee participation in volunteering programmes. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on the phenomenon of employee volunteering by examining various organizational efforts that facilitate better employee participation in volunteering programmes.

A novel ergonomic wheelchair reduces bacterial hand contamination

Objective To determine whether bacterial contamination of rider’s hands is less with a novel ergonomic wheelchair (EW) than a standard wheelchair (SW). Experimental design After wheelchair hand rims were disinfected, volunteers wearing nitrile gloves propelled each wheelchair through a standardised “run” in hospital. Post-run cultures were obtained from riders' gloved hands. Bacterial hand counts were compared between runs matched by rider (same rider, different chairs) or time (different riders in each chair, running concurrently), and overall. Setting Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System (MVAHCS), a large tertiary care facility. Participants Eleven employee volunteers. Intervention EW, as compared with SW. With SW, co-location of hand rims and tyres potentially exposes the user’s hands to tyres, which risks contaminating the user’s hands with ground-source bacteria. Our novel ergonomic wheelchair (EW) separates drive wheel and hand rims, potentially reducing hand contamination. Main outcome measure Bacterial hand counts. Results Post-run bacterial hand counts were over 10-fold lower with the EW than the SW. This was true (i) when the same rider tested both chairs sequentially (n = 8 pairs) (median counts, 40 vs. 1030; p = 0.008), (ii) when different riders tested the two chairs concurrently (n = 9 pairs) (median counts, 40 vs. 660; p = 0.004), and (iii) overall (median counts, 40 [n = 9 runs] vs. 550 [n = 10 runs]; p < 0.001). Conclusion Separation of wheelchair hand rims from tyres significantly reduces bacterial hand contamination. Reduced hand contamination could decrease bacterial infections and dissemination of resistant bacteria, warranting further study. Implications for rehabilitation The novel design of the ergonomic wheelchair, removing the push rim from proximity to the wheelchair tyre, keeps the hands of wheelchair users cleaner. The re-design of the standard manual wheelchair was implemented initially to improve shoulder ergonomics during manual wheelchair propulsion and has the added benefit of reduction in the transfer of bacteria from floors to hands for manual wheelchair users. Since the ergonomic wheelchair has the potential to decrease rates of bacterial infection in manual wheelchair users, further testing is warranted.

The FDA’s Message Testing: Putting health literacy advice into practice

Acting on health literacy principles in a large agency requires not only knowledge of the research base, but also creative work to implement the concepts in practice. Sound scientific advice needs practical development, shaped for the specific working environment. For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) needs to test communications with intended audiences, but must work within constraints including: Widely varied audiences Significant time pressure Complying with multiple reviews designed to protect potential message testers Testing messages with the intended audiences is a basic communications responsibility, not just an option. Yet, how to do the testing can be challenging. The FDA's experience suggests two practical approaches for user testing: Internal message testing with a network of employee volunteers External message testing with consumer panelists The report briefly explains how the FDA assesses some public communication internally and externally to attain insights about a target audience or a health message as well as discover how a communication might be modified to improve its usability by an intended audience. The report suggests internal or external message testing is superior to controls (no testing) and such testing can be accomplished by a large governmental agency embedded within a complex regulatory environment.

An Investigation of Computer-based Brain Training on the Cognitive and EEG Performance of Employees.

Neurocognitive skills (e.g., processing speed, attention and memory) were hypothesized to be critical for workplace performance and by extension for the work-life balance of employees. Twenty-one employee volunteers underwent a neurocognitive training program - which consisted of an initial pre-test assessment, a six week "boost" or intervention period, and then a re-assessment to track the progress of each participant. A median split of the group created two training groups: a long-training group that averaged 30 hours of total training during the boost period; and a short-training group that averaged 7 hours of training. On pre-training measures of neurocognitive performance, group differences in performance did not reach statistical significance. Following training participants experienced a positive impact from the program as measured in three ways: standardized higher behavioral metrics, improved cognitive state metrics using EEG and positive self-reported data. From a quantitative perspective, participants' cognitive efficiency increased by 12% for the high-training group and 5% for the low-training group (cognitive efficiency refers to a behavioral measure which combines accuracy and speed). Qualitatively, study participants reported improvements in their productivity and mental performance post-study.

Community Connections: Employee Volunteering

Whether it is a small, local business, or large, national corporation, employees can be a source of volunteer power in any community. Employees can participate in a wide range of volunteer activities and programs that are supported by their employers. Employee volunteers are often equipped with specialized skills, information, and a fresh perspective to help address community issues and challenges (Lautenschlager, 1993). There can be benefits to the individual employee, the employer, the corporation, and the community. This document is FCS9235, one of a series of the Family, Youth and Community Sciences Department, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. Original publication date December 2005.

Influencing Vaccinations: A Buzzy Approach to Ease the Discomfort of a Needle Stick—a Prospective, Randomized Controlled Trial

BackgroundThe rate of annual influenza immunization in both the general public and health care workers is less than desirable. Mechanisms to improve compliance with recommendations are needed; prevention of immunization site pain has been suggested as a viable route because fear of pain and needles has been cited as a barrier. AimsThis study aimed to evaluate the impact of thermomechanical stimulation (Buzzy) on postprocedure pain ratings during vaccination in adults. DesignThis was a randomized controlled trial of Buzzy during immunization. SettingsThree hospitals and two community health centers which are part of a large, integrated health system. Participants/SubjectsEmployees presenting to employer-sponsored annual influenza vaccination clinics. MethodsA 10-cm visual analog scale was used to rate preinjection anxiety and expectation of pain as well as postprocedure pain scores; participants also rated their satisfaction with the vaccine injection on a 10-point Likert scale. ResultsIn total, 497 employee volunteers were recruited to participate. Preprocedure anxiety was similar between the experimental and control groups (1.53 vs. 1.48, p = .82), whereas self-reported postprocedure pain scores were significantly lower in the group that received the Buzzy during injection (0.87 vs. 1.12, p = .035). Mean satisfaction scores did not vary between the intervention and control groups (9.11 vs. 9.09, p = .87); however, more participants rated their experience as better than previous vaccination experiences in the Buzzy group than control (62.0% vs. 23.9%, p < .0001). ConclusionsThese results suggest that Buzzy reduced pain experienced by adults undergoing annual influenza vaccination and may improve overall experience. Buzzy can be used in adult patients to reduce pain during immunization and is especially effective in those with high levels of anxiety.

What drives employees to participate in corporate volunteering programs?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how some of the key aspects of employee motivation and their perception of volunteering programs impact their participation in corporate volunteering. Specifically, this study argues that employee’s self-oriented motives to significantly influence employee participation than other-oriented motives. Similarly, this study also hypothesized that the corporate volunteering program characteristics to significantly relate to employee participation in corporate volunteering.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected from 461 employee volunteers representing various industries across four different locations in India. A self-reported method was used to collect the data by administering the questionnaires.FindingsThe structural equation modeling results indicate that other-oriented motives (altruistic) and characteristics of corporate volunteering programs to significantly predict employee participation in corporate volunteering and self-oriented motives did not show significance in predicting employee participation.Research limitations/implicationsResults suggest that employee participation in volunteering is a function of not merely employee motivation but also how the volunteering programs are conceptualized and implemented.Originality/valueThis research study moves beyond mere role of employee motives analysis and considered the role of characteristics of corporate volunteering programs to impact employee volunteering behavior. Further, it highlights there is a differential impact of self- and other-oriented motives in predicting employee participation.

Recruit corporate volunteers by highlighting benefits, impact

Nonprofits looking for an edge in attracting corporate employee volunteers to support their activities should extol the values volunteerism offers businesses and their workers, experts say.

How Useful are Handheld ECG devices?

Patients without clinical knowledge must be able to use mobile electrocardiography (ECG) devices to collect healthcare data outside a clinical setting safely and effectively. We conducted a simulated use test to assess usability from a patient perspective, with 18 ECRI employee volunteers who were familiar with smartphones, but unfamiliar with the two devices being evaluated. The largest a priori concerns were how long it would take to collect a valid ECG reading and how easy it was to share data captured by the devices. Overall the systems (ECG device plus smartphone app) were rated similarly in terms of usability, and none took so much longer than the others that it could be considered less useful. However, the testing did reveal some significant usability problems with each system. Moreover, it is unclear how the data produced by these devices, which needs to be reviewed by a clinical expert, will impact communication between patients and providers. More research is needed to understand how having patients use medical devices with smartphone apps could impact the workflow and communications of the primary care or specialty physicians to whom the data produced by these devices will be sent.

Relationship between serum selenium, sociodemographic variables, other trace elements and lipid profile in an adult Spanish population

Several studies have shown an inverse relationship between selenium status and cardiovascular health, although epidemiologic evidence yielded by the randomized trials did not find a beneficial effect of selenium administration. The aim of this study was to analyze the association between serum selenium levels and lipid profile adjusted by age, sex and other associated factors among a general adult population in Spain. We recruited 372 hospital employee volunteers (60 men and 312 women) with a mean age of 47 (SD: 10.9), whom were given a standardized questionnaire. Serum selenium concentration was measured by electrothermal atomization atomic absorption spectrometry. Serum copper and zinc concentrations were measured using flame atomic absorption spectrometry. The mean of serum selenium was 79.5μg/L (SD: 11.7) with no sex-dependent differences. In the multivariate linear regression analysis, the associated factors with the mean levels of selenium were: age (β=0.223; CI 95%: 0.101-0.345), p<0.001; widowhood (β=-9.668; CI 95%: -17.234 to -2.102), p=0.012; calcium supplements (β=3.949; CI 95%: 0.059-7.838), p=0.047; zinc (β=0.126; CI 95%: 0.013-0.238), p=0.028 and glucose (β=0.172; CI 95%: 0.062- 0.281), p=0.002; Participants with serum selenium≥79.5μg/L were 1.98 (OR=1.98; CI 95% 1.17-3.35; p=0.011) and 2.04 times (OR=2.04; CI 95% 1.06-3.97; p=0.034) more likely to have cholesterol ≥200mg/dL and LDL-c ≥100mg/dL respectively than those with serum selenium <79.5μg/L. Higher selenium was positively associated with increased total and LDL cholesterol but not with HDL-c and triglycerides. More studies are needed in order to confirm the lower serum selenium findings in widows.

Commitment through Employee Volunteering: Accounting for the Motives of Inter‐Organisational Volunteers

This study investigated whether participating in inter‐organisational (i.e. self‐directed, non‐strategic) employee volunteering, which is common but rarely studied, is associated with increased organisational commitment. We find evidence for this relation in a sample (N = 385) of employee volunteers and their non‐volunteering co‐workers. We statistically account for self‐selection into the volunteering program by incorporating individual motives for volunteering. Volunteers compared to non‐volunteers exhibited relatively stronger motives of expressing altruistic values and avoiding negative affect, but a weaker motive of attaining career advancement. Our findings point to an efficient way of increasing organisational commitment that is relatively inexpensive to implement. They also complement existing research from other employee volunteering contexts, pointing to a possible trade‐off between the desired outcomes of effectively managing volunteering programs.