Few Employers Recruit Retired Workers to Volunteer With Charities

Few companies actively encourage their retired or soon-to-retire employees to volunteer, a new report says.

That is in sharp contrast to the efforts many companies make to get the rest of their work force involved in community activities, the report notes.

The report — “Expanding the Boundaries of Corporate Volunteerism” — shows that about half of the 22 national companies surveyed have a low level of interest in persuading their retired workers to volunteer. The study, conducted by the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College and Volunteers of America, a social-services charity in Alexandria, Va., included interviews with corporate-giving officers, as well as data provided by more than 1,000 workers and recently retired employees from four companies. The workers in the study were 40 or older. The researchers also gathered groups of workers and retired people from three big companies to discuss volunteer issues.

About half of the companies surveyed said their retired workers participate in corporate volunteering programs, but only a few companies make any special efforts to reach them.

The vast majority of employees and retired workers surveyed — 88 percent — said they believe that companies have a responsibility to promote volunteerism. The survey also found that while only 20 percent of employees had volunteered through their employer in the past year, 72 percent of employees and volunteers had an interest in pursuing volunteer opportunities through their company in retirement.

While employees and retired people feel that employees who are stepping down from their jobs are an “untapped asset,” corporate leaders have yet to “devote attention or resources to building this connection,” the report said.

Among other key findings of the survey:

• Employees and retired workers are interested in finding volunteer possibilities online. More than 80 percent of those surveyed said a company Web site that advertised volunteer opportunities would increase their interest in volunteering.
• The majority of people said they are looking for volunteer jobs with flexible schedules. More than half of those surveyed — 57 percent — said the degree of flexibility in a volunteering arrangement would influence their participation.

Copies of the report are available on the Web sites of Volunteers of America (http://www.volunteersofamerica.org) and Boston College’s Center for Corporate Citizenship (http://www.bc.edu/corporatecitizenship).