Almost everything I read about Employee Volunteer Programs is positive. Almost too positive? As EVPs exist within CSR, they are a relatively new concept - fresh, untried and without long term measurements to establish feasibility or value. But the whole thing seems to be too good of an idea (and I mean morally good) to question.

A couple years back Susan Ellis took a critical aim at EVPs (even though she supports the practice) and wrote the following article: (Here's a bit, but follow the link for the whole thing.)

September 2004 Workplace Volunteerism: Have We Thought this Through? By Susan J. Ellis

"The concept of employers stimulating and supporting community service by their employees has been accepted by our field almost as gospel. I am going to assume that everyone reading this Hot Topic knows the arguments in favor of recruiting volunteers through their place of employment, especially from large businesses but also from nonprofit and government workplaces. So, in the interest of provoking some rarely-done analysis of this practice, I’d like to outline some of the issues that increasingly concern me about the way that workplace volunteering is evolving – and these issues crop up everywhere in the world." Read the rest of the article....