Employee Benefits — What about time off for “Volunteering”?

December 5, 2024/Business, Regulations/

While it can be tough being an employee of a family-owned funeral home, sometimes employees don’t understand it can be tough being the owner or boss as well. I’ve been on both sides — being an employee in my college days and then coming home and being the boss. . . . I’ve seen it from both sides and know the role you are in is not always easily understood by the other side.

I was the owner of a funeral home for almost 35 years and had many great team members that I worked with. Originally, especially when we were smaller and had less employees, employee benefits were pretty easy to dole out — salary compensation, health insurance, and paid vacations.

As our work staff grew as the years went by and employees became more diverse in their lives I was able to visit with them about what employee benefits would be important to them. Of course, there was pay scale. . . but there was more, there was child care, continuing education payments, health care options, retirement accounts, and of course, paid time off.

And, as you might imagine, different employees had differing wants and needs of these benefits. Eventually, we came up with what a lot of companies do — we put an amount of money on the table for each employee annually and then let them pick and choose which of the available “cafeteria options” that they wanted to partake of. It worked out very well and we also offered a paid membership to a club such as Kiwanis or Rotary, a retirement match, and a year-end bonus dependent on how many death calls the firm did over a year’s time.

By the way, as an aside, I was always happy to pay year-end bonuses based on call volume because if we reached those “stretch” volume numbers, the funeral home had a good year also and there was always money to pay those bonuses. In addition, by charting our numbers monthly, all employees knew where we stood on the year. . .and that was great knowledge for employees to know whether it was good or bad news.

Lately, as this article from Fortune will attest to, is the idea of giving paid time off for “Volunteering” as another benefit of working for your firm. The article goes on to state that stress is rising in the workplace and workplace “well-being” is on the decline. However, one survey found that there was one clear positive effect on employees and that was “Volunteering”.

The idea is to give a paid work-day two to four times per year to an employee so that they can volunteer their time in some community endeavor. Here’s what Mark Snyder, a professor at the University of Minnesota found in his research on the benefits of volunteering:

“People who volunteer, as a result of their volunteering, have a higher sense of self-esteem, greater happiness and emotional well-being, and increased physical health. Combining it with work which is a big part of people’s identities, could make for “particularly powerful experiences of volunteering” that will be highly valued. . . .It’s a message that the employer cares enough about the community to invest in the community through providing ways for their volunteers to do good.”

And, Ares Management which conducted a study titled “Why Workplace Volunteer Programs Matter” makes the following points:

Volunteers are more satisfied overall with their job (79% vs. the 55% who did not volunteer).
Volunteers are more satisfied with their company’s culture (75% vs. 54%) and leadership (71% vs. 45%).

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: I think the idea of “Volunteerism” as a company benefit could be very beneficial for family-owned funeral homes. While your staff is probably small and you cannot afford to have them all gone on the same day because of the random nature of the business, the idea of letting your employees join other major employer volunteer forces could work very well.

What about allowing an employee the ability to join a Habitat for Humanity build-out or American Heart Association blood drive with an established employer group? Having them join with a larger group such as a elderly care center or a hospice group doing a day of volunteering would also put them in touch with people whom they may come in contact with over the course of business. . . . and knowing and working with these people in a common bond could only bring positive influences to your business.

As you make your final decisions about 2025 think about adding a paid “Volunteering” benefit, even if it is only one day per year, to your employee benefit options. It’s something I think most employees would look forward to.

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