Individuals employed in a nonprofit setting make a conscious choice to work for social change. Because the work is demanding, employee burn-out can run high. But management should counteract this by incorporating, in addition to the usual benefits and strong recognition programs, innovative compensation vehicles that drive performance improvement and build employee morale and commitment.
Personal and Professional Development – attending conferences and workshops to improve the skills specific to an employee’s job description or career track is important. However, it is equally important to foster continued learning about related topics, and even loosely related topics of interest. You never know when connections can be made, and when fresh perspectives incorporated into an employee’s job will benefit the entire organization.
Employee Contributions with Employer Match – make giving simple. Allow employees to make deductions directly from their paychecks, and offer a 1:1 employer match.
Paid Volunteer Days – promote volunteerism with three opportunities.
- Paid: encourage employees to take one paid day each year to volunteer at an organization of their choice.
- Team-building: employees choose an organization for which they will volunteer together. Maximum team-building benefits are achieved when the work is focused on a cooperative outdoor activity, such as a beach clean-up, or beautification project.
- Core services: volunteer your organization’s knowledge to a start-up non profit. Your staff morale and organizational perspective will be enlivened and reinvigorated as you share your strategies with an organization for whom the information is fresh.
Community Lunches – create a standard daily lunch hour in which all staff come together to eat a meal prepared by other staff members. Foster camaraderie by encouraging coworkers to discuss anything but work. Employees volunteer to cook when their schedules and interests permit; draw names from a hat to see who cleans up.
