Employee Volunteering: Does Giving Your Time Give You Better Wellbeing

Meehan, Fiona (2019) Employee Volunteering: Does Giving Your Time Give You Better Wellbeing. Undergraduate thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.

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Abstract

Employee volunteering is a prosocial act associated with positive outcomes for the beneficiaries, the company and the individual volunteer. Research repeatedly demonstrates a positive relationship with wellbeing amongst volunteers, whether it be in one’s own time or through work. The main aim of this research was to investigate if employee volunteers have higher levels of subjective wellbeing than their non-volunteering colleagues. It was predicted that employee volunteers would have higher levels of wellbeing than non volunteers. The research also predicted that satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness, would mediate the relationship between employee volunteering and subjective wellbeing. Participants were recruited from a large telecommunications company and online through social media, using a convenience, snowball sampling technique. A Mann-Whitney U test was completed between the employee volunteer condition (N=43) and the employee non-volunteer condition (N=43) to examine the differences in subjective wellbeing (SWB) using the Satisfaction with Life Scale and the Scale of Negative and Positive Experience (SPANE). No significant difference was found in SWB between the two conditions. A hierarchical regression analysis was completed to investigate the predictive nature of the three basic psychological needs, controlling for age, gender, education and job level. Only needs satisfaction of competence was a unique significant predictor of SWB amongst employee volunteers. This finding suggests that employees were able to apply and learn new skills through volunteering, resulting in a feeling of competence. Ways to enhance employee volunteering initiatives so they might lead to greater needs satisfaction and wellbeing are discussed.

Item Type:	Thesis (Undergraduate)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > Psychology H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare > Charity Organisations H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > Non Profit Organisations. Voluntary Sector. H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > Issues of Labour and Work > Quality of Work Life / Job Satisfaction
Divisions:	School of Business > BA (Honours) in Psychology
Depositing User:	Caoimhe Ní Mhaicín
Date Deposited:	15 Oct 2019 09:26
Last Modified:	15 Oct 2019 09:26
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/3886

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