Employee Engagement in CSR: The Case of Payroll Giving in Australia

Payroll giving (on-going donations deducted from an employee's salary) is an effective way to engage employees - important Stakeholders - in the company's corporate social responsibility (CSR). This paper is based on a study that was conducted among 24 Australian companies, with over 4500 employees, to examine how participation and levels of giving relate to background variables (income, job level, education, age, family status, and giving behavior), attitudes (motivations, barriers, attitudes toward the employers' engagement in the community and organizational commitment), as well as organizational factors (size, industry type, overall level of participation, and matching donations by the employer). We found payroll giving to be significantly related to all background variables and organizational factors. As for attitudes, we found significant differences between high-level givers, low-level givers, former givers and non-givers in regards to their motivations, barriers and attitudes towards their employer's engagement in the community, but not to organizational commitment. The study shows that stakeholder theory and corporate giving theories can be combined to involve employees in the company's giving. The findings can help companies to understand how to better communicate, segment and donate in a way that will increase participation of employees.