And I also have the flexibility to spend my time on non-working matters too, something that I have found is more and more important to me as I get older. My participation a few weeks ago in the Million Mom March made me realize that I need to do more volunteer work these days, and need to think more about doing something for my community, neighbors, families and friends. Then I heard from Tammy Ellingson , who runs the Community Affairs group at public relations firm Waggener Edstrom, about what they are doing to promote this. The rest of this essay is in her words. Well, maybe it's time to check our your local community and see what's going on.
Employers can make it easy for employees to get involved.
A lot of companies offer employees either a set number of hours, or a specific day that can be set aside for volunteering in their community. Waggener Edstrom offers employees eight hours per year to volunteer for an organization of their choice. The hard part for employees is deciding what to do. We built an intranet site to list company organized activities and drives, community organizations, and individual volunteer opportunities in each office location. We also provide managers with ideas for volunteer activities that can be used as team building experiences.