Through the Work: Employee Volunteers
How purpose-driven, skill-based volunteering builds better leaders, stronger teams, and more engaged employees.
“This was one of my first opportunities to really own something — and watching it grow has felt like building a legacy.”
— Rebecca Etessami, ZS, Strategy and Operations Manager
When Rebecca first stepped forward to help launch a negotiation workshop, she was early in her career and looking for a way to use her skills beyond traditional volunteer events. What began as a single workshop became one of Working for Women’s longest-running skill-based volunteering programs, led by ZS, a global consulting and technology firm, and our earliest and longest-standing business investor. Today, the workshop continues to support hundreds of women across our nonprofit partners, while standing as a legacy of what happens when employee expertise meets purpose.
“You could walk past someone on the street or talk to someone at work and have no idea what they’re carrying.”
— Lucy Benson, Copy Supervisor, The Bloc
When Lucy Benson joined the Head Above Water project with Working for Women, she stepped into a creative challenge that went beyond traditional storytelling. Through Working for Women’s skill-based volunteering model, Lucy was able to apply her professional expertise in a way that directly advanced women’s economic mobility. As a copywriter at The Bloc, she was used to translating complex ideas into clear narratives. But this work required something deeper—capturing the emotional reality of ALICE women and making an often invisible struggle impossible to ignore.
What emerged was a powerful visual story rooted in empathy: a woman inside an invisible bubble slowly filling with water, symbolizing the mounting pressure many women face while appearing “fine” on the surface. The film has since become a centerpiece of Working for Women’s Head Above Water campaign, sparking reflection, conversation, and action among audiences.
“For me, coaching is about helping people build confidence and move forward,” Chuck says. “Working for Women has given me the opportunity to use those skills in service of a clear purpose and share them beyond my day-to-day role at ZS. That has been very rewarding.”
— Chuck Kawalek, ZS Associates
For Chuck Kawalek, volunteering with Working for Women’s negotiation workshops is about more than teaching negotiation skills—it’s about helping women recognize their own confidence and use their voices to create new opportunities. As a coach at ZS, Chuck brings his professional experience to conversations that can impact compensation, flexibility, career growth, and financial independence.
His experience has also reshaped how he thinks about allyship, showing him the power of listening, learning, and putting skills into action. Read and discover how one volunteer’s willingness to show up can help create lasting change.
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