HR West® – “HR in the Most Innovative Place on Earth” and We2o have partnered up to help enable employees to donate unused vacation hours to charity. This new corporate giving revenue source, aligned with corporate HR departments, grew last year to $65 billion of untapped charitable giving revenue.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA (PRWEB) DECEMBER 17, 2015 – HR West, an innovative and collaborative human resources industry event—that serves a community of over 20,000 human resources professionals, was looking to solve the problem of how to creatively fundraise for the American Heart Association—through its community members distributed across multiple companies and counties.
When HR West sought out a new and innovative way to help increase funding for the conference charity, they found We2o, a philanthropy platform that epitomizes the fresh approach they were looking for to align with its “HR in the Most Innovative Place on Earth” maxim in 2016. Michael Vo, an early Tesla employee and former engineering executive, leads the team of passionate software engineers who have developed We2o. Now, the world class We2o philanthropy platform will provide HR West attendees and volunteers, and its conference production team with the opportunity to donate their unused vacation hours to the American Heart Association or a charity of their choice.
HR West and We2o recognized the opportunity for a 3-way-win between the American Heart Association, employees, and employers. First of all, the charity can access a new source of funding. Secondly, dedicated employees will no longer have to watch unused vacation days go to waste. Finally, employers can reduce vacation time liability on corporate balance sheets, which in turn, saves on accounting overhead and allows for more accurate financial forecasting, as well as a great way to generate positive PR for giving back. “HR West plays a role in spotlighting innovation in HR and we think this idea is big. During the month of December our employees are donating to their favorite charities via We2o. From there we’ll utilize the We2o platform in our outreach to our community of over 20,000 HR professionals who’ll have the opportunity to donate to our selected conference charity, the American Heart Association,” says Greg Morton, CEO of NCHRA (HR West producer).
On average, $52.4 billion is in limbo each year due to employees not taking their entire vacation accrual. This represents a total $224 billion liability for U.S. businesses. The annual figure grew to $65.6billion last year alone, representing a 42% increase in unused vacation hours. A study done for 114 public companies covering 377,000 employees indicated that on average $1,898 or 5.7 days per employee are unused. In the case of companies with greater than 500employees, an average of $2,609 of vacation hours per employee goes unused. Only 48% of employees take all vacation for use-it-or-lose-it hours.
Americans are working longer and took an average of 16 vacation days in 2013 — down from 20.9 in 2000. To address the problem, some companies today are even enticing employees to expend their vacation days by paying up to 10% over base salary for those hours. According to Michael Vo, “Despite our connected world and advancements and innovations in web technology, online donations remain well below 10% and charitable giving overall is still only 2% of the US GDP for some 40 years now. The We2o platform is designed to help make the philanthropy experience what it deserves to be, fun, engaging, impactful and connected. “I know from experience—working long hours at Tesla—how demoralizing it felt when you put in long hours and then lose your hard earned vacation time. This is a completely new source of funding for charities that’s never been available. A compelling and substantial bucket of new money can be liberated to support charities and help improve our communities.”
Working together with We2o, HR West is looking to leverage innovative technology and progressive thinking to solve a long standing, pervasive problem that has persisted for years.
