Many Hands Helping the Community

From the judges: “The level of participation is very high, but there is still momentum for growth.”

The ‘Helping Hands’ program is JB Hi-Fi’s signature community investment initiative. Created in 2008, the program mirrors the characteristics of how the entertainment and electronics retailer is run – low cost, high impact and as simply as possible. The primary focus of the program is on encouraging participation, knowing that not only will this foster a positive culture of giving within the company, it will also increase the money raised for its nine charity partners. The program is considered core to the business strategy and is reported on at the JB Hi-Fi AGM and in the Annual Report.

A Helping Hands Committee was re-launched in the first quarter of 2017. Consisting of 13 passionate team members, including representatives from the Executive, stores and head-office support staff, its role is to continue to grow and strengthen the program, and ensure it remains relevant and engaging to the workforce. There are two adjacent campaigns as part of Helping Hands, which support charity partners Redkite and The Song Room. These campaigns give employees and the wider community an opportunity to support these charities by purchasing items at one of its retail locations – superhero cards designed by JB team members (Redkite) and air instruments (The Song Room). Since the inception of these two programs, $1M has been raised from these campaigns.

Information about Helping Hands is integrated into regular staff communications including email bursts, dedicated social media pages, intranet, posters and workplace events. After winning Gold for Best Overall Program at the inaugural Workplace Giving Awards in 2016, the team set themselves the bold target of increasing their already impressive participation rate of 72% to over 80% – which they have now achieved, largely due to an intensive campaign in June Workplace Giving Month.

Helping Hands is a great example of what a collective giving model in the workplace can achieve. Each week over 6,000 of the JB team contribute, which when matched by JB, has contributed an amazing $14M to the community since the program began.

JB Hi-Fi has identified that the continued success of the Helping Hands program is heavily reliant on ensuring it maintains a high level of engagement with staff. The company is in the final stages of research that measures the total positive impact Helping Hands has on the organisation and how it supports JB to continue to attract and retain great team members.