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In the middle of November last year, Charles Prince was in China as part of a business trip to the country. During the trip, the Citigroup chairman and chief executive undertook a rather unusual journey. After jumping on a bus, Prince and his wife Peggy took a three-hour ride to the rural town of Lai-Shui, where the boss of the world's biggest bank spent the rest of his day harvesting leeks and painting a school classroom. Meanwhile, more than a thousand miles to the east, Doug Peterson, chief executive of Citigroup Japan, was halfway up Mount Fuji with 90 other colleagues, clearing the forest and planting new trees.

On the same day, thousands of Citigroup staffers around the world were busy taking part in the company's first ever Global Community Day. More than 40,000 staff members and their families took part in 800 different charity projects in 450 cities across 100 countries. As a mobilisation of a global workforce, it was an effort of which even the US military would have been proud.

Much of the credit lies with Claudia McNamee, Citigroup's director of the office of global volunteer initiatives, who heads a small staff dedicated to promoting Citigroup's voluntary efforts. She claims the idea for the event came last June when executives noticed the amount of volunteer work Citigroup employees already carried out. 'There were already so many things being done at a local level, the idea was to combine and focus what we were doing; it was an expression of our unity,' says McNamee.

Although she coordinated efforts from her office in New York, individual employees in their localities decided which projects to support. 'We have links with certain programmes in local communities around the world that have been vetted,' explains McNamee. 'But it was very much down to the individuals which projects they took on.'

Helping hands

Many of the projects focused on education and children. In Poland, for example, employees built wheelchair ramps at a children's centre and helped renovate a sports centre. In Thailand, Citigroup staff read books to the blind and worked with Operation Smile, a not-for-profit medical services organisation that provides reconstructive facial surgery for indigent children.

Global Community Day had Prince's backing from the start. 'Citigroup is committed to mobilising the enthusiasm and talents of our employees for community service,' he explains. 'It highlights our commitment to improving communities where we live and work.'

Despite that backing, however, organisers insist the volunteers were just that: nobody was forced to help out or felt he or she had a proverbial arm twisted. Indeed, recent research by UK-based Community Service Volunteers (CSV), a volunteering and training organisation, shows that nearly half of firms that give staff time off to work in the community have experienced a reduction in sickness leave.

Positive profile

Of course, such events are also good for a company's image. Volunteering helps give a firm a positive look in each community, while in Citigroup's case, running courses in subjects like financial literacy can help create tomorrow's customers.

Last year in Guam, for example, 29 Citibank volunteers became teachers for a day to over 250 students during the National Teach Children to Save Day. 'We noticed that even at a third-grade level (age eight or nine), some students already knew what a current account is,' says Citigroup employee Ajay Kashyap. 'And the fourth and fifth-graders grasped the idea of having a professional salary and upgrading their skills. It's clear they are aware of the rising cost of living and know how important it is to watch where their money is spent.'

Citigroup is not the only company to hold such events. The Global Volunteer day held by US-based insurance group Prudential is now in its eleventh year, while technology services provider EDS reckons its employees have put in more than 550,000 hours of volunteer work since its programme began in 1993. Electronics company Sony and software group Oracle are among other major corporations to run similar initiatives.

Meanwhile, Citigroup is hoping to increase its efforts even further this year. 'There is already a strong volunteering culture in the US, so last year we really wanted to concentrate on the international side - and we were amazed at how well they did,' explains McNamee. 'We surpassed our expectations: we thought we might get 20,000 people and expected maybe one project in every country, but in the end we did so much more than that. This year we will be trying to make it easier for our US employees to get involved.'

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