Volunteering as a source of meaningfulness: From HRM in nonprofits to employer-sponsored volunteering

Previous research has demonstrated that aside from the value that volunteering brings to organizations and society at large, individual volunteers also benefit from their volunteering activities by experiencing enhanced personal satisfaction, social connectedness, and meaningfulness in both their paid and unpaid work. Organizations in both profit and nonprofit sectors have therefore become increasingly interested in identifying workplace practices designed to enhance meaningful experiences through encouraging people to volunteer their time to important causes. This symposium brings together leading scholars who will make a contribution to current debates on volunteering by (a) identifying different human resource management practices that can be implemented to increase participation and retention of volunteers within nonprofit organizations as well as paid sector organizations as part of employer-sponsored volunteering programs, (b) analyzing the positive outcomes that can be generated from both forms of volunteering with regards to individual volunteers and their respective organizations, and (c) exploring the type of spillover effects between employees’ job attitudes and their volunteering activities.