‘Inc.’: Small Businesses Urging Workers to Volunteer

More and more small businesses are coming up with ways to help their employees find opportunities to volunteer at charities, says Inc. magazine (September).

“Providing community-service opportunities makes sense, particularly at growing companies that ask people to work long hours,” the magazine said.

Jim Dodson, president of the Dodson Group, which helps small businesses obtain discounts on office services, sends its employees to work at a local soup kitchen on the last Friday of every month. “A lot of our people work in customer service, and they hear about problems all day long,” Mr. Dodson told the magazine. After three hours of serving food to homeless people, he said, they realize that “the problems we have with customer complaints are not really a problem at all.”

Not all small businesses have had positive experiences when they have linked their workers with charities, however, the magazine says. “I think my employees hate the non-profit work I ask them to do,” one company manager, who asked to remain anonymous, told the magazine. “Non-profits can be demanding.”