Alcoa: Promoting the volunteer spirit
This case study outlines Alcoa's commitment to employee volunteering and provides details of several models used by Alcoa to encourage employee volunteering.
Alcoa employees are active volunteers in their communities. Alcoa and the Alcoa Foundation encourage this volunteer spirit and promote employee engagement with the company's social responsibility values through programs such as ACTION, Bravo! and the Worldwide Month of Service which is underway in October 2006.
Alcoa operates alumina and aluminium processing operations in WA, Victoria and NSW, employing around 6200 people in Australia. Alcoa is a global business with operations in 42 countries and has a worldwide commitment to promoting volunteering.
Alcoa Foundation
The Alcoa Foundation is a global philanthropic foundation which supports community projects around the world through funding and employee volunteering programs.In Australia last year, the Alcoa Foundation contributed around $1.45 million to community projects, plus an additional $1.5 million to Curtin University of Technology through the Foundation's Conservation and Sustainability Fellowship program.
The Alcoa Foundation actively encourages employee volunteering through the Worldwide Month of Service, ACTION and Bravo! programs.
Worldwide Month of Service
The Alcoa Foundation's Worldwide Month of Service in October 2006 is a month-long program of activities to encourage and celebrate volunteering by Alcoa employees around the world.Previously, Alcoa celebrated volunteering through a Week of Service but this was extended in 2006 to provide more opportunities for volunteering and events to recognise volunteers.
Month of Service activities in Australia in October 2006 included:
- Alcoa senior executives and other employees from WA, Victoria and NSW visited schools to help with safety education as part of the KIDS Foundation's Injury Free Day.
- Alcoa employees in WA worked with the Roleystone Dieback Action Group to vaccinate jarrah trees against dieback in the hills outside Perth. Over 70 people sprayed or injected over 1500 trees and other plants. Without the volunteers, it would have taken the Roleystone group four days to achieve this result.
- Employees at Yennora in Western Sydney are helping a Westmead Children's Hospital parent committee host a fundraising dinner dance for the Connective Tissue Dysplasia Clinic.
- Employees from Geelong worked with the Friends of Buckley Falls to revegetate community parkland on the Barwon River. Alcoa employees and the Friends of Buckley Falls have been working together for 20 years on similar projects.
- Alcoa's Eastern Australian management team came together for a working bee at the Cottage by the Sea at Queenscliff near Geelong. Cottage by the Sea provides sea-side holidays and short-term care for disadvantaged children.
- Anglesea Power Station employees helped to upgrade the Eumarella Scout Camp near Anglesea.
- Pinjarra refinery employees in WA provided hands-on help for the Little Nippers Children's Festival at Mandurah.
- Kwinana refinery employees and Cockburn Wetland Education Centre volunteers planted 2000 sedges around Bibra Lake in Perth's southern suburbs to control weeds.
Employee recognition was another focus of the Month of Service. Workplace breakast and lunch functions were held at Alcoa sites around Australia to thank employees for their contribution as volunteers. Guests also included volunteer organisations and Alcoa's community partners.
There was a high level of senior executive involvement in the Month of Service program. At North Parmelia Primary School in WA, Alcoa's Managing Director, Wayne Osborn and six of the company's most senior managers worked with students to identify playground hazards and risks and highlight them with yellow paint. This was part of Alcoa's nationwide support for the KIDS Foundation's Injury Free Day
And at Queenscliff in Victoria, 15 members of Alcoa's Eastern Australian management team helped to paint outdoor recreation areas at the Cottage by the Sea.
"Active involvement from senior executives bolsters our volunteering programs by showing employees that the company appreciates their volunteer contribution and that we're serious about living our values," said Alcoa Foundation Manager, Kylie Cirak.
Kylie Cirak says another key success factor in employee volunteering is to link it to the company's long-term community partnerships.
"Our support for Injury Free Day in schools is part of a wider partnership with the KIDS Foundation. That's a partnership which has had a high level of employee involvement right from the start and the feedback from employees is that they've really appreciated the opportunity to have that hands-on involvement," said Ms Cirak.
"The project at Buckley Falls is another example of an ongoing partnership. Our employees have worked alongside the Friends of Buckley Falls on many occasions over the last 20 years, revegetating the falls area and creating recreation facilities so the community can enjoy this unique spot," said Ms Cirak.
Action
The ACTION (Alcoans Coming Together In Our Neighbourhood) program was developed by the Alcoa Foundation to support volunteering by Alcoa employees. This program delivers funding and hands-on help to community groups.The Alcoa Foundation provides grants of US$3000 (approximately A$4000) for special community projects where 10 or more Alcoa employees volunteer their time. The projects are nominated by Alcoa employees who enlist fellow employees to work on them, alongside members of the community organisation.
In 2005, the Alcoa Foundation gave 40 ACTION grants totalling A$162,708 for community projects around Australia.
Many of the 2006 Month of Service initiatives are ACTION projects.
A key feature of the ACTION projects is that they are nominated by employees who champion them within the organisation and enlist their work-mates and members of the community organisation to work on them.
"One of the benefits of our employee-driven approach is that it means we're directing funding and volunteer efforts to the areas of need that our employees consider to be priorities for their communities.
"For a global entity like the Alcoa Foundation, that's valuable because it taps us into the grassroots and shows us which areas are important to local communities," said Ms Cirak.
"Having employees in the driving seat is also important because our social responsibility objectives are based on a philosophy of partnering and employees are one of the most crucial links in our community partnerships," said Ms Cirak.
Bravo!
Bravo! supports employees who regularly volunteer in their community by providing small grants to their voluntary organisation.Under the Bravo! program, employees who do more than 50 hours of voluntary work annually for a community organisation can apply for a US$250 (approximately A$330) grant for that organisation.
Over 700 Australian employees received Bravo! grants in 2005, providing a total of A$241,690 for their nominated community organisations.
Other volunteering programs
Alcoa also supports employee volunteering through partnerships with community organisations like Business and Community Links in Victoria which brings together businesses and community organisations that need volunteers.And corporate volunteering doesn't end at retirement. In 2004, Alcoa and the Alcoa Foundation helped to set up the Timehelp program where Alcoa retirees are matched to community projects where they can share their skills and life experience.
Timehelp was established in Victoria through a partnership with the Charities Aid Foundation and the Skills Exchange and Learning Force.
KIDS Foundation
Improving children's health and safety is a key priority in Alcoa's community partnerships and the company is a major supporter of the KIDS Foundation (Kids in Dangerous Situations).The KIDS Foundation partnership has been strengthened by a high level of employee involvement including:
- Employees visiting schools to deliver safety education and assist with School Safety Clubs which empower students to implement safety initiatives at school.
- A group of Victorian employees took part in a camp for burns survivors, acting as mentors and helping with the day-today responsibilities of a youth camp.
- The same group raised $35,000 for KIDS Foundation through personal fundraising activities
Alcoa and the KIDS Foundation are working with schools around Australia to promote a national Injury Free Day in schools on 25 October 2006.
The Alcoa Foundation has supported the development of an Injury Free Day resource kit with activities to increase safety awareness and reduce safety risks.
Alcoa employees including the executive management team will visit schools in NSW, Victoria and WA on October 25 to help with these safety activities.
WA employee tree-planting
Each year, a hardy band of Western Australian Alcoa employees spend a winter weekend planting trees in the Wooroloo Brook catchment in the hills outside Perth.
Over 15 years, they have planted over half a million trees, combating salinity and erosion and creating wildlife habitats.
This year, 57 employees and partners planted over 46,000 seedlings in the Paruna Wildlife Sanctuary, working alongside volunteers from the Wooroloo Brook Land Conservation District Committee (LCDC) and the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.
The group included Peter Rossi and Keith Hunt who have been planting trees every year since the program started.