Chamber Membership: A Nice Bonus for Employees

​If you’re a chamber member, you may not give a lot of thought as to what that means for your employees but there are a lot of benefits for them as well.

​1.      Lunch and Learns
Chambers host Lunch and Learns and other seminars on topics such as social media and personal branding. These topics can be worthwhile for your employees. You can even use it as a free or inexpensive form of professional development.
Don’t assume your employees know about these perks. Circulate the learning schedule among your employees. This is an effective way to get even more value from your chamber membership. Many younger employees are looking for ways to boost their skills and these sessions are a quick and easy source for learning.
 
2.      Discounts on Events
Another benefit your employees may not be aware of is discounts on tickets to chamber events. Oftentimes, the chamber offers discounts to members on their event tickets. Speaking of discounts…
 
3.      Member to Member Discounts
If your chamber offers member to member discounts you want to make sure your employees know about them. This can be a considerable cost savings to your employees and a nice perk you can pass on when someone joins your company.
 
4.      A Way to Meet People in the Community
If you recruit outside of your community and bring people in from other towns or states, they may wish they knew more people in town. Sure, you can introduce them to other employees but it’s nice for them to get to know people outside your company as well.
For people from your community, the chamber offers them an opportunity to brush up on their networking skills, which is critical to professional development.
 
5.      The Ability to Shine
Another benefit of chamber membership for your employees is a golden moment where they can shine. This may be the chamber picking up a social media post of theirs, the chamber accepting a guest blog from them, or a speaking opportunity to showcase what they know. This gives your employees a time to shine as well as represent your company proudly.
Some business owners only use the chamber membership themselves and forget to tell their employees that they can use it as well. There are many reasons that it benefits you to do so, but one that is important to your business is getting your employees out in the community. It not only gets your name out there but shows that your company and company culture think community involvement is important. This is the type of thing that makes a big impression on customers and potential customers who begin to know, like, and trust you when they see you contributing.
 

Christina R. Green teaches small businesses, chambers, and associations how to connect through content. Her articles have appeared in the Midwest Society of Association Executives’ Magazine, NTEN.org, AssociationTech, and Socialfish. She is a regular blogger at Frankjkenny.com and the Event Manager Blog. 
She’s a bookish writer on a quest to bring great storytelling to organizations everywhere.