How to Retain Employees by Empowering Them to Make a Difference: Why Giving Back is Good for Your Company – and Good for Your Soul
BY Garrett Clayton/Promoted // 12.12.18
Amcap presents a check to a deserving charity.
This article is part of a promoted series and not produced by the editorial staff.
Type “how to retain” in your Internet search browser and watch as your search engine quickly suggests “employees” as the first option to complete the phrase. It’s not surprising people are searching for how to keep employees on board, considering it can cost businesses up to 40 percent of an employee’s salary to find and train a replacement when even a single entry-level employee is lost.
It also takes time, up to two years for a new employee to reach productivity levels of a well-performing predecessor or existing colleague.
The advice nearly every search result article proclaims? Create a culture that centers around relationships. In short, when your business makes its employees feel good — useful, respected, valued — they stick around.
At AmCap Home Loans, we have taken that advice a step further. We fortify the positive relationships we build with our employees within the office by empowering them to go out and give back to the communities in which they work and live, through charitable acts and donations backed whole-heartedly by the entire AmCap Home Loans organization.
More than anything else, it is this culture of caring that defines our company and allows us to attract and retain the best mortgage professionals in the business.
With the holiday season here, there is no better time for businesses and individuals to consider how philanthropic outreach can enrich company culture and employee satisfaction. Take a look at how we are building relationships and empowering our employees through charitable giving to build one of the strongest companies in the industry — and gain insights into how other businesses can apply these strategies to keep employees fulfilled, dialed in, and on board for the long-term.
Establishing a Culture of Community Involvement
At AmCap, we believe part of owning a home or business is investing back into the community. Our mission is to promote positive community change through charitable giving at the local, state, and national levels. To ensure our current and potential employees understand and embrace this aspect of who we are, we have included it as part of our five-point mission statement.
This also helps remind executives at the upper levels that we are about more than simply revenue, which drives how we do business and how we lead.
We also practice what we preach, initiating and spearheading charitable acts at the corporate level and encouraging our branches to become involved. Each year, AmCap partners with IMG Financial Group to sponsor an Annual Charity Golf Tournament benefiting the Folds of Honor Foundation, an organization whose mission is to provide educational scholarships to spouses and children of America’s fallen and disabled service-members. The event is organized by AmCap corporate, but team members from across our branches come out in support of the tournament and work as volunteers.
It is an event we all look forward to not only for how we are helping, but also for how much fun we have doing it.
Another worthy cause we are happy to support and partner with is Habitat for Humanity. We frequently sponsor a house and invite our employees to spend a few days working and building it. The gratitude that comes from the deserving family who is then able to call the house their home is truly a bigger reward to the employees that participate than any recognition that we give for high performance on the job.
Embracing Causes Important to Employees
As crucial as it is to promote a mission of community involvement from the top-down, it is equally necessary to allow employees to give back in ways that are meaningful to them. AmCap encourages our team members to discover what ignites a fire for giving in their souls and to share that opportunity for giving with everyone who is a part of our AmCap family.
This year, we collected more than 1,000 hygiene products to help support children in Honduras. One of our branch managers, Chad Earnest, introduced the company to this opportunity, which we were then able to spread through company-wide communication. In November, Chad personally delivered computers and the supplies collected by AmCap to a Honduran village school.
In our monthly internal newsletters, we share the ways AmCap employees are giving back at the branch levels, which again unifies us all in our company mission to give back, recognizes the efforts of these offices and individuals, and encourages others to take the same initiative — knowing they have an entire company to support their endeavors.
Recognizing Charity Begins at Home
We often don’t have to look far to find someone in need. At AmCap, our mission of giving back includes looking after the valued members of our team.
When Hurricane Harvey devastated many neighborhoods in the hometown of our corporate office, it affected hundreds of our employees. There was no question that we needed to help. As a company, we raised more than $75,000 in funds to give to those employees who suffered major losses during the flood.
Even without tragedy at hand, we find ways to show our employees that our commitment to caring begins with them. For the past two years, AmCap has awarded educational and special scholarships to our employees and their dependents. Some of our winners have been first generation college students, some have received the scholarship to relieve college debt, and even others have received the scholarship to pursue their dreams in the world of music.
Start Giving Now
Making community involvement and charitable giving a part of company culture is one of the smartest decisions business owners and executives can make. At AmCap, with branches across the country, it unifies us in a way no other aspect of our company can. It also keeps us centered on what truly matters in life, humanizes both employees and management, and gives us all something to feel good about.
We have always called ourselves a family because that is what we strive to be, and giving back certainly helps make us one.
The holidays are here, which means there are countless opportunities to get involved in your communities and beyond. If you are looking for more ways to keep the culture of caring going year-round, here are some other philanthropies we support at AmCap and encourage you to as well:
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