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Leading HR In Nonprofits: Five Ways To Drive Employee Engagement

Forbes Human Resources Council

Subhashree (Subha) Chaudhuri, MBA, is the Senior Director, People & Culture at Equal Opportunity Schools

Small organizations, especially nonprofits, operate on limited resources, with a scrappy and “can do it all” culture, which means that teams are generally understaffed but late to recognize or accept it and ever later to act on it. In most organizations, operations as a function typically lacks focus when it comes to staffing needs and is playing catch-up as businesses grow. Human resource budgets, beyond personnel and core benefits (health and retirement) costs, are also limited in smaller businesses, and these small HR teams comprised of a few people are chronically overworked and overwhelmed due to the many hats they need to wear every day.

As we all are experiencing, human resources’ regular role as the champion of employee wellness — which translates on most days to an “on-demand” advisor, counselor, coach, trainer, mediator, event planner, etc. — has become even more demanding and valuable in the midst of all the changes and stress precipitated by the current pandemic and economic uncertainty. It’s not a surprise that employees working in human resources are showing signs of being affected by the weight they have been carrying over this last year. 

So how can HR leaders and teams in smaller organizations continue to play their critical role of supporting employees’ many needs while maintaining their own health and wellness? One strategy I have found helpful is to focus team resources on core, functional (“keep the lights on”) tasks this year, along with augmenting capacity by recruiting our talented employee base to act like an extension of our team on select priority-aligned initiatives related to employee experience and wellness.

Here are some ways to do that:

1. Have an honest 'audit' of your team capacity and capabilities for special projects.

It may be difficult to accept that we need help, especially in professional settings, but I have seen that when we center the needs of the organization, we can gain perspective and identify important initiatives that may have stalled or been deprioritized due to limited bandwidth. As an example, we identified that our team was struggling to design employee wellness activities to best utilize funds allocated in our health plan. A voluntary wellness task force was created that provided us much-needed guidance and solutions to implement. 

2. Be vulnerable and invite employees to create an expanded 'HR tribe.'

In mission-driven organizations, employees are truly passionate about collaboration, and in my experience, many are eager to contribute beyond their official roles. By communicating that you need and value their knowledge, skill sets and perspectives, you open an authentic channel to engage them in their areas of true interest. And as collaborators, they become change agents to help drive the implementation of their initiatives.

Our bi-annual all-staff retreats, for instance, require massive investments in time and event planning and management skills, and we have learned that forming a voluntary planning committee that has representation across functions to help share the load also helps ensure we design the most meaningful and uplifting time together.         

3. Truly share leadership responsibilities and decision rights.

It is important to not just treat your tribe as a feedback source alone, but to empower them to lead work and make decisions as appropriate to ensure that they feel actual ownership. Sharing program design, planning and facilitation responsibilities are some ways that I have seen enable genuine engagement and creative solutions from employees.

Another area our team needed support during this last year is designing virtual social events that help maintain a sense of connection and community in our remote working world. Our employee-led social club did all the heavy lifting and created, scheduled and facilitated a whole range of fun group experiences without any restrictions set by us.

4. Provide necessary resources to support employee-driven initiatives.

Often, even with the best intentions and support, employee-driven projects fail to get implemented successfully or get integrated and scaled with the organization’s programs due to a lack of sponsorship or dedicated budget. It is imperative to get buy-in from the executive team, have an executive sponsor or be the official champion as the HR leader, and allocate the needed budget to ensure that there is continued communication, alignment and support for the work.

I have seen this play out with our racial equity team (voluntary, employee-led), which was able to successfully execute a number of organization-wide initiatives this year once we had a dedicated executive sponsor and an allocated budget to support them.

5. Recognize and celebrate their contributions publicly.

Something to keep in mind is that employees who sign up to help are doing so on top of their workload, and it is important to show gratitude and appreciation for that commitment and support. One way to recognize such contributions is by integrating them formally into a person’s goals aligned with your core values of service or learning. You could also use your existing communications and recognition channels to celebrate them formally.


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