Demand from corporate partners for staff engagement and wellbeing activities has soared this year. Why? Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report gives us some valuable clues.
Only 27% of managers globally are engaged in their work. If managers are disengaged, so are their teams. A whopping 70% of team engagement is driven by the manager and if they’re struggling, the business is in trouble. The decline in engagement is especially marked in female managers and younger managers.
Disengagement is costing the world’s economy $438bln in lost productivity. Engaged employees produce better business outcomes and have a measurable impact on organisational performance. Now you know why your corporate partners are begging for staff engagement and wellbeing activities.
Could your nonprofit help corporate partners with solutions to this pressing need? Here’s how.
The famous psychologist Dr Martin Seligman identifies 5 measurable elements of wellbeing in his PERMA framework:
Ø Positive Emotion
Ø Engagement
Ø Relationships
Ø Meaning
Ø Accomplishment
Positive emotion
This is something that a charity has in bucketloads. Whether it’s about rescue puppies, children playing or life changing moments, your charity has a treasure trove of positive and inspiring stories. Look at the heartwarming stories from Pet Medical Crisis or Sydney Children’s Hospitals.
Even before COVID or the cost-of-living crisis, corporate partners sought content and inspiration from nonprofits. The best-paying jobs in corporates always have their tedious sides. It’s hard to keep people motivated when they’re selling insurance all day, even if the pay is good. In today’s environment, where teams are under more pressure than ever, your content isn’t just “nice to have.” It’s a staff engagement and wellbeing asset.
Use your stories to create micro-moments of positivity for staff: internal newsletters, short videos, celebrations of impact, or campaign milestones. These moments directly support staff engagement and wellbeing. We explore how to turn these moments into scalable partnership value in our book Partnerships Reimagined.
Staff engagement
This is far more than a once-a-year volunteering day. Effective engagement taps into the cognitive, creative and emotional strengths of employees. Can you provide engagement that taps into core skills, ideas and expertise from your corporate partner? For example, Translators Without Borders taps into language skills to help humanitarian aid and Zooniverse give volunteers the opportunity to participate in scientific research. Camp Quality worked with Fujitsu to leverage their innovation and technology to create a brand new online offering for children affected by cancer.
Can you think more broadly about staff engagement and wellbeing opportunities that will inspire your corporate partner’s staff and make a difference to your mission? The positive emotion that comes from engaging skills effectively helps people enjoy their daily tasks and persevere with challenges. When you offer skill-based or innovation-led engagement opportunities, you help staff feel more capable, energised and aligned with your mission a big driver of staff engagement and wellbeing.
Relationships
These are being tested as people work in hybrid ways and risk becoming disconnected from each other. Online Friday night drinks are helpful, but your charity’s campaign could be the catalyst for more effective team relationships. Note the success of MSRA’s May 50K or Black Dog’s One Foot Forward, which brought together teams to fundraise and improve their health and wellbeing at the same time. Given that Gallup’s research showed 41% of employees in Australia and New Zealand are struggling, and 49% are experiencing daily stress, you are offering a valuable proposition for corporate partners: structured, meaningful opportunities that improve staff engagement and wellbeing while deepening internal relationships.
Meaning and accomplishment
This can be achieved through an active partnership with your charity. How? Because you’re solving the issues that are truly meaningful to society- and employees want to be part of that.
In the post-COVID world, everyone has had a reality check on what’s important to them. Turns out that the expensive car and Gucci handbag aren’t as vital as keeping families healthy and well. Your corporate partnership can unlock the craving for meaning and accomplishment that isn’t fulfilled by day-to-day work.
Your role is to design partnership activities where employees can see their contribution, track milestones and celebrate progress. Small wins matter for day-to-day staff engagement and wellbeing more than employers realise.
Create a shared vision with your corporate partner of what you can achieve for the community together, and you’ll have a partnership that sustains over the long term. The latest five-year partnership between RFDS Queensland and Rio Tinto is driven by a vision to strengthen health outcomes for regional and rural communities. It is also a significant investment in the health and wellbeing of Rio Tinto’s staff in the areas where they operate.
No single element defines staff engagement and wellbeing, but each contributes to it. And right now, corporate partners are more focused on wellbeing than ever before.
This is your moment to bring your assets, stories, opportunities and impact to the table.
If you can offer activities that meaningfully support staff engagement and wellbeing, you’re not just helping a corporate partner tick a box. You’re creating deeper value, stronger partnerships and long-term alignment with what employees genuinely need.