Driving Social Purpose Forward: A Look at Our Impactful Working Groups in 2023

In 2023, we are making significant progress with Social Purpose through the implementation of our new Working Groups, each of which has specific objectives. The results so far are encouraging:

Engagement: By allowing individuals to self-select Working Groups based on their interests, we have seen increased contributions, energy, and idea-sharing, driving momentum and progress.

Leadership: Team members have stepped up to effectively lead Working Groups, gaining new skills beyond their regular roles, making it a great opportunity for leadership development.

Diversity: Some brands successfully recruited from various personnel, both corporate-based and field teams, though engaging remote teams remains a challenge, but progress is being made.

Tool utilization: We are focusing on leveraging existing tools like the Volunteer Hub event calendar, Social Purpose Toolkits, and Random Acts of Kindness Bingo, with calendar utilization becoming increasingly important for quantifying our contributions.

Updates from Working Groups:

Employer of Choice:

This group is focused on cultivating a best place to work culture through initiatives including employee recognition and engagement programs, mental health initiatives, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and many others. This is a very engaged group and its meetings provide a wonderful forum for sharing of ideas, best practices and details on programs that have been successfully launched within our brands. 

Social Purpose Awareness:

Aims to improve communication and awareness of Social Purpose initiatives across the organization through turnkey communications and messaging. One of the goals of this group is to ensure all 27,000 team members know about Social Purpose and meaningful programs such as the FirstService Relief Fund. 

PETS (PawsFirst):

There’s no doubt about it. Our team members love their pets! Many of our employees are dedicated to supporting animal welfare efforts and this group brings together like-minded individuals who brainstorm ideas and programs we can bring to our organization, such as fundraising and awareness activities like our first pet photo contest launching this fall.

Seasons of Service:

This group coordinates initiatives like Summer of Service and plans to expand to other seasons, encouraging participation across all brands.

We appreciate the dedication of our team members to Social Purpose and welcome any ideas for improvement. Everyone is welcome to join any of our Working Groups, and we seek diversity across companies and job roles.

If you would like to join any of our Working Groups, please let us know!