Volunteering on a corporate level goes beyond mere team building for some DBA supporters. Just ask Jill Lehman with Ontario Systems.
“Our volunteer time off program is woven into the fabric of our company,” says the technology provider’s Chief People Officer from her office in Muncie, Ind. “It’s a big part of our culture. We take service to our community very seriously, and so everyone here from our interns to our executive leadership takes some kind of role.”
Ontario Systems has been providing accounts receivable software, systems and services to the ARM industry, along with healthcare providers and their business offices for more than 35 years. And since its foundation, “service” has been a value the company leans on. For Ontario’s 300 associates, that’s meant more than attending diligently to customer and employee needs – It’s meant focusing on their communities as well.
“The truth is, volunteerism and corporate philanthropy is simply good business,” wrote Ontario Systems CEO Ron Fauquher on the company’s blog a couple years back. “Millennial employees who participate in a company’s volunteer program are twice as likely to rate their work culture as ‘very positive’ over employees who don’t. Companies with highly-engaged employees achieved three times the operating margin and four times the earnings per share than operations with disengaged employees did. Employees using what they’ve learned at work in volunteer efforts are 142% more likely to develop new skills away from the office. And 40% of a company’s reputation is determined by volunteering and corporate responsibility.”
“Giving our people the opportunity to serve the various human service agencies in our local communities creates an immediate impact,” he concludes.
To develop those advantages, Lehman and her team founded a VTO program that offers paid volunteer time off to each and every employee – part time and full time. She notes that it’s important for Ontario employees to remain available to their clients every day of the year though, so scheduling the familiar whole-company day to help at a Habitat for Humanity site, or serve food at a soup kitchen didn’t quite fit the goal.
In keeping with what the company refers to as its “You-Powered Culture,” Lehman and her team aimed to provide a more flexible option: Letting each individual employee take up to 16 hours a year, paid, as if they were asking off on vacation.
“When we have people serving in leadership capacities in non-profit organizations, we even let them go above and beyond that number of hours,” says Melanie Chmielewski, Total Rewards Director at Ontario Systems. “Providing leadership to those organizations is a full-time job in and of itself, but it also provides a tremendous benefit to the communities they serve. So we work to support those who make that kind of commitment.”
Ontario has supported a number of charities in its local community since the program’s inception, but counts Second Harvest Food Bank, the United Way and Habitat for Humanity among its most-favored causes. In 2014, the company was able to support both the first two, along with the Animal Rescue Fund, during its participation in the DEFENDER Super Service challenge. Employees participating in that program documented their experience on video, which later earned their chosen charities an additional several thousand dollars when their content was noticed by the Challenge’s administrators.
And while the company focuses on community service year round, it places special emphasis on it during the holiday season, having gone so far as to assemble a committee with the sole task of selecting and organizing volunteer programs for a number of charities during peak giving season.
That commitment has earned Ontario Systems “Pacesetter” status by the United Way – recognizing the organization’s commitment to a number of donation guidelines set forth by the charity – and has contributed to recognition by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, and College Mentors for Kids. The company also has made itself a member of TrueU: A consortium of like-minded companies who value leadership in service.
“We prefer to network and do business with like-minded companies who believe in community and service as important corporate values,” Lehman says. “We encourage and invite our employees to bring their families to the volunteer fair we host each year, along with other local partners in our area who can voice their need directly. We like to meet new people face to face, and bridge that gap between opportunity and person.”
Already this year, Ontario Systems was named one of the Best Places to Work in Indiana, and many of its employees have already found themselves using the VTO made available to them by Lehman and her team. It’s a strategy that continues to pay dividends, from which the organization has no plans to depart any time soon.