The People Bulletin

The third annual National Payroll Giving Excellence Awards held at HM Treasury and hosted by the Institute of Fundraising on 5 October was a telling barometer of how some employers are beating cynicism surrounding social responsibility when it comes to employee engagement. 

Payroll Giving raised £104,016,916 in 2008/09 along with an additional £13m in employer matched donations from a total of 754,000 employees signed up to Payroll Giving schemes in the UK. There were 9227 employers running Payroll Giving Schemes in 2008/09.  Recent promotional initiatives such as the Payroll Giving Quality Mark has boosted take-up after a plateau for some years around the £80m mark – somewhat slow growth given the scheme has been going since 1987. 

Payroll Giving lets donors make regular or one-off donations to charities of their choice directly from their earnings or company or personal pension. Donations are made out of income before income tax is taken off. This means that donors are given tax relief on their donation immediately - and at their highest rate of tax. Further information on how to set up and manage a scheme is available on the HMRC website[1]. 

The awards attracted 37 entrants (up on last year’s 28) and comprised eight categories. The overall winner of the ‘most successful payroll giving promotion’ was the retail jeweller, Beaverbrooks, who set up their scheme in March 2008 and have engaged 25% of their workforce donating via the payroll to 99 different charities. The judging panel included Philip Whiteley, author of the 22 September People Bulletin article on human capital management[2] and Keith Moore who heads up HMRC Charities. 

Research from Best Companies[3] indicates that ‘giving something back’ is one of the eight factors influencing employee engagement. Worryingly when they asked respondents if their organisation’s support of worthy causes was driven by a desire for good publicity 56% agreed. Although this may not be the actuality behind the motivation, this misconception about employee intent could damage an organisation’s kudos within social responsibility (SR).
 
This clearly indicates the need for ‘honest-broker’ behaviour by leadership who are involved in SR, making sure that each employee not only is engaged in ‘giving something back’ but understands why the organisation does it.
 
With many companies now taking part in this type of activity and employees recognising that organisations are actively giving something back to worthy causes, the communication behind the purpose and reason needs to be clear, open and regular to ensure all employees know why support of worthy causes is important to organisational values. Payroll giving as a channel for civic patriotism has a certain transparency about it and Stephen Timms, financial secretary to the Treasury, indicated at the awards that the whole process will be reviewed by the government with a view to dealing with any potential obstacles encountered by employees and charities and making more of this fundraising channel. 

And it may have been more than a coincidence that payroll giving award-winners Beaverbrook also reached the number one spot on the Sunday Times List for mid companies last year. 

[1] www.hmrc.gov.uk/CHARITIES/tax/giving/payroll.htm 

[2] http://www.apbusinesscontacts.com/the_people_bulletin-pb_6/lessequal.aspx

[3] www.bestcompanies.co.uk