People seek ways to make differences in their community – even at work. They want to work for companies that make a positive impact. Providing charity and volunteering opportunities to team members benefits employers as well by boosting employee engagement. Companies that offer volunteering experience are able to recruit top talent, retain employees longer, and create an environment of collaboration in the work place.

Company sponsored corporate philanthropy and corporate giving programs also offer benefits to the employees themselves. These volunteering opportunities help employees master new skills, prepare to take on greater responsibility, and contribute to the community beyond the office walls. By committing to a cause, companies can provide valuable services to the community while strengthening and uniting their workforce.

Here are seven valuable lessons employees learn from community service:

1. Problem Solving: When employees volunteer for nonprofit organizations, they face obstacles that are different from those they tackle on the job. Through volunteering experience, they learn how to adapt quickly to overcome these challenges.
2. Career Exploration: By participating in volunteer activities, team members may have the opportunity to try new roles and responsibilities. Service can be an invaluable avenue for professional development. Volunteering impacts team members by helping them discover talents, strengths, and interests they may not have known they possessed.
3. Teamwork: Community service requires collaboration, and team members may need to partner with colleagues different other than those they're used to working with. Teams may need to brainstorm for solutions or compromise in order to agree on the best course of action.
4. Communication and Listening: Corporate philanthropy projects are a great opportunity for team members to improve their communication and listening skills. Dealing directly with other members of the community also improve workers’ abilities to provide excellent customer service.
5. Leadership:Team members who participate in community service are often placed in roles of great responsibility. They must learn to delegate, give clear instructions, and motivate their team. As team members master these skills, volunteer events can become the perfect training ground for up-and-coming leaders within an organization.
6. Advocacy: Uniting behind a community cause helps team members learn how to motivate others to take action. They learn to communicate the benefits of giving. While encouraging others to make charitable donations they must overcome objections to help change minds for the greater good. These skills are highly valuable, especially to employees whose roles include sales, marketing, or public relations.
7. Planning and Organization: Community service projects are complex, and team members must manage them correctly to make sure nothing falls through the cracks. As volunteers, employees may be asked to manage budgets, gather supplies and resources, meet tight deadlines, and execute multistage action plans. Involvement in these projects can force team members to hone organization skills they may be lacking.

Service projects are growth opportunities for employees, because they teach valuable lessons and skills employees can apply to their daily work. Volunteer activities unite teams around causes that are important to them and the community. Employer-sponsored volunteer work helps assure them that the work they do serves a greater purpose. Committing to a cause by donating money or time simultaneously benefits communities, companies, and the employees who work there. Companies who sponsor volunteer opportunities also boost their bottom line by building a workforce that is building new skills, happier, and more engaged.

Management and leadership are two sides of the same coin, and both are necessary for a business to succeed. Learning the difference between management and leadership is important for developing effective management skills.

Great leadership is about inspiring enthusiasm and drive, while great management is about building highly efficient teams that produce impressive results. Managers are experts at getting things done and meeting targets and deadlines; leaders know how to evolve people and organizations and help them meet their potential. Each is a unique discipline that helps teams meet their short- and long-term goals, while also fostering commitment to a shared vision and outside the box thinking.

So What IS the Difference Between Management and Leadership?

Management skills are concerned with assigning tasks, committing to deadlines, and creating systems, while leadership is focused on defining a purpose and uniting individuals behind big ideas. Managers ensure teams meet their deadlines and deliver what’s expected of them, while leaders focus on the future and how teams might prepare for challenges on the horizon.  Management is about limiting risk, while leadership encourages bold action. Leadership is primarily about engagement, while management has more to do with execution.  Management focuses on performance, while leadership focuses on development. Managers develop processes and create smooth operations, while leaders build relationships, encourage communication, and build trust. The most successful businesses are built with an ideal balance of management skills and leadership skills.

Can you differentiate between management and leadership? Test yourself with the scenarios below:

Scenario 1: Suzy Business Owner has promised a new client 2,000 flyers by the end of the month, but she recently lost two employees, and she knows it’s going to be a stretch. She creates a workflow document that helps remaining team members understand when they must complete their portion of the project, and she meets with each team member one-on-one to train them on the new system. By following the workflow correctly, the team is able to meet their deadline.

Is this an example of management or leadership?

Answer:  Management

Suzy is faced with a short-term business challenge, and by managing her overstretched team correctly, she’s able to help them successfully achieve their goal.

On the other hand…

Suzy should be careful. Her team is being pushed beyond its limits. To continue her team’s successful streak, Suzy must also lead. She has to remind team members that accepting these kinds of challenges can help them transform the organization, leading to a more successful future for everyone involved.

Scenario 2:

Jim Entrepreneur is hoping to push his company to become the leader in its industry within the next five years. He knows it’s possible if everyone gets on board. He calls a team meeting where he presents his long-term vision and asks team members to imagine what it will feel like to someday be the best of the best. He hands out paper and crayons and asks everyone to draw a picture of one thing the company can start doing differently to help towards its goals. The team eagerly participates and many turn in more than one idea.

Is this an example of management or leadership?

Answer:  Leadership

While Jim’s meeting may not produce any tangible results immediately, it serves to unite the team and get everyone excited about the company’s potential. His brainstorm encourages creativity, and it reminds each team member that his or her ideas matter. The meeting also helps inspire people to focus on the big picture rather than just short-term results.

On the other hand…

Jim has a talent for getting his team fired up, but this effect could fade if his team members start to notice that he’s all talk and no action. Jim will need to use his management skills to prove that he can translate ideas into tangible business systems.

Scenario 3:

Eric the Executive grows concerned when the company does not hit its goals for the quarter. He schedules one-on-one meetings with each member of his team to investigate the problem. One team member, who has struggled to meet his deadlines, says he’s been having trouble with the company’s current software, and he has been leaving work 10 minutes early every day to take a training class on another software he was hoping to pitch as a replacement. Eric tells the team member he’s sorry to hear the current software is challenging, but he asks the employee to consider dropping the class to allow him the extra time needed to finish his daily tasks. The employee agrees to focus on his work.

Is this an example of management or leadership?

Answer: Management

Eric is doing a great job using his management skills to monitor the bottom line and ensure his company is meeting its quarterly goals. He understands that every team member must be contributing 100 percent of what is expected of them if the company hopes to produce the results it has promised.

On the other hand…

While Eric has solved the problem in the short term, he may be missing longer term opportunities to help the company operate more efficiently. If he had found a way to help the team member stay in the class, Eric would have provided the employee with a chance to develop himself while also exploring a new software solution which might improve company operations far into the future.

Scenario 4:

Brenda the Boss has discovered that her team’s projects have consistently come in over budget, and the executive team has suggested that if Brenda can’t curb spending, they may have to reduce her department’s budget for next quarter. Brenda can think of a few ways she could reduce spending, but instead of implementing those ideas automatically, she decides to throw the problem to her team, asking them to brainstorm some solutions to cut costs.

Is this an example of management or leadership?

Answer: Leadership

By empowering her team to find solutions, Brenda encourages them to think outside the box and demonstrates confidence in their abilities to problem solve. She also shows that her priority is not implementing her ideas, but rather, finding the solutions that are best for the team.

On the other hand…

Brenda will still need to make sure the solutions her team comes up with will deliver as promised. If they cannot reach their cost cutting goals, the whole team will suffer under a slashed budget, so Brenda may have to nix more creative ideas if they don’t seem likely to reach the goal.

Every business needs both great management and bold leadership in order to achieve its goals. Vision without action is ineffectual, and efficiency without a purpose is a recipe for maintaining the status quo. Managers help businesses function like well-oiled machines, while leaders help organizations evolve and take giant leaps forward. Innovative companies can count on their managers to work out the kinks, lower costs, and increase volume, while well-managed companies benefit from the creativity, passion, and unity leaders inspire. Whether it’s achieved by one executive or a team of one hundred, the most successful companies will be those who recognize the difference between management and leadership see the two as complementary and inseparable parts of any thriving business.

Well into January of 2014, the Cydcor team is ready to make a big impression. There is a lot to live up after such a great 2013. If you have not been to our Cydcor YouTube Channel, we would love for you to subscribe! In the meantime, here is our latest feature: a review of 2013 at Cydcor. Moving forward, it is important to remember all the things our company participated in and accomplished last year.

2013 Highlights Include:

Helping United Way put together packets for elementary school students.

Fun team nights at restaurants and parks.

Winning ten medals in the Ventura Beach area corporate games, including volleyball, basketball, bowling and dodgeball.

Sending delegates to attend the Gala for Operation Smile.

Leadership conferences in Altanta, GA, building success and celebrating unleashed potential.

Summer interns coming in and learning the business of sales and supporting our team.

Being awarded a "Best Place to Work" in Los Angeles County.

Raising almost $300,000 for Operation Smile, funding more than one volunteer medical mission for cleft palate surgeries.

Organizing fundraisers like bowling nights, garage sales and the network wide Day of Smiles event.

Gathering over 100 meals for low income families in the community for Thanksiving.

Giving away gifts with our giving tree to children at EARTHS elementary school.

It was a great year, and we plan on making our 20th year in business even better!

Why Cydcor is A Best Place to Work
By Vera Quinn, Chief Operating Officer

What makes a great company? We can answer that - according to the recent Best Places to Work assessment sponsored by the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Cydcor ranked in the top 100 companies to work for in Los Angeles County – coming in 38th best of mid-sized companies. There are thousands of companies of our size in Los Angeles County and many of them participated in this year’s competition. As you can imagine, the LA list is quite popular. The list is in its seventh year and has grown significantly, attracting employers from all over Los Angeles County. We are proud to have been named once again!

We are doing even more with the following in the works:
· Resource staffing plans – working with departments to properly resource for success
· Performance management – a new performance appraisal process
· Compensation study – researching pay by position and responsibilities to ensure we align with the market
· Program for our people – including development of consistent onboarding, training and development programs

So, while we never rest on our accomplishments – there is a lot to make our families proud, our friends jealous, and us feel great!

Everyone can do his or her part on how to make the office a great place. Keeping a positive attitude, creating professional development goals and keeping communication lines open.

As the dominant market leader in outsourced face-to-face sales, Cydcor’s capabilities and approach to doing business are like our team members: truly unique! As someone who started with Cydcor over 17 years ago, I am honored to be part of a company that is getting recognition to be a great place to work. We are proud of our team members, and I know that we will only continue to grow stronger with all the great people we have here.

To learn more about Vera Quinn, take a look at our executive team biographies.

The holidays have been the perfect time for Cydcor to continue our “giving back” mentality. This season, for the second year in a row, many team members purchased gifts for children at a local elementary school and then a group of us took the presents over to the school and delivered them to the children. We had a giving tree party with cocoa, cider, and baked treats while team members gathered around the tree and chose wish lists. There were 107 wish lists to fill. All were taken and filled in the next week by our team.

Team members chose wish tags and replaced them with an ornament while we snacked, watched “The Grinch,” and got into the holiday spirit. Gifts were delivered by “Santa” and Cydcor elves to the children on December 18th.

We’re looking forward to 2013 – there are many, many good things for us to do!