Vizient has been a committed to providing a robust employee volunteer program as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative for several years. This year, with the launch of its first engagement platform, Vizient
reached new company and industry milestones nearly overnight. In just three months, the company hit a full-time employee participation rate 41% higher than the industry average. Jennifer Lind, community outreach director at
Vizient, attributes the program’s success to a company-wide strategy re-vamp that incentivizes through participationbased rewards and the implementation of the YourCause platform to help engage, track and collect CSR data.

Challenge

Coming from an organization that had successful and efficient CSR programs
in place, Lind knew the best way to create strong engagement was marketing
the new program to employees and getting them excited about what was to
come. Leaning on her knowledge of the industry, and Vizient’s partnership
with YourCause, the project team launched a campaign and implemented the
CSR software to track employee engagement.

Using the Platform

Without providing employees any information other than a superhero theme
and one large number, the CSR team teased the launch of the YourCause
platform, Vizient Cares Connect, through a company-wide webinar that reached 65% of employees. During the demo of the platform, Vizient’s chief
people officer previewed program enhancements, the functionality of the
platform and online engagement elements; she also shared inspirational
volunteer stories. Afterwards, employees were given detailed information
on how to work with the revamped CSR program, informed about program
benefits like five days of paid time off to volunteer and were encouraged to
take advantage of incentives offered by the company

Redeeming the Cause Cards

To immediately engage employees with the program and platform, Lind
created an incentive element – voting on the design for the new volunteer
T-shirt. Once employees voted, they immediately received a $25 Cause Card,
redeemable to the nonprofit organization of their choice.
This strategy not only encourage employees to visit the new platform to
vote and receive a free Cause Card, but it then drove them back to the site a
second time in order to donate the funds to their preferred organization. The
Vizient CSR team used this strategy to show how user-friendly and navigable
the platform was, even for first-time users. Through this engagement
strategy, Vizient issued 1,230 Cause Cards, with a total value of $30,750 going
to 1138 nonprofit organizations nationwide.

Results

In the seven months since implementation of the YourCause platform, Vizient has experienced an employee participation rate of 63%. The strategies of utilizing engagement elements like voting on T-shirt designs, issuing
incentives like Cause Cards to build confidence and increase participation with the platform, and allowing ample paid volunteer time off to full-time employees has created a reenergized culture of philanthropy and giving company-wide.