Bandwidth joins the Time To Vote campaign, adding to our Whole Person Promise mission for employees

Bandwidth is proud to support the Time To Vote campaign, a nonpartisan effort led by CEOs, aimed at increasing voter participation. I’m happy to have joined forces with almost 150 CEOs (and counting!) to commit to not only encouraging our team to vote in upcoming elections – but to make sure they have the time to vote.

At Bandwidth, we make it a priority for our team to both do meaningful work AND maintain a full personal life through our Whole Person programs. When we were approached about joining the Time To Vote campaign, it was a natural fit.

One of the most common reasons people in the U.S. give for not voting is that they are too busy, or have work and life demands that prevent them from voting.

This resonated with us, because our Whole Person programs are designed to reduce the friction between work and life. It’s the same reason why we offer a 90-minute workout lunch: because we want to ensure that our employees have time to exercise and don’t sacrifice health for work. So adding benefits to allow for more flexibility on election days and ensuring employees can take Time To Vote is important to us. While we have always encouraged flexibility on election days, we’re taking the next steps to outline several clear benefits to make it even easier:

• Reduced Workday: Employees who choose to vote may take two paid hours out of their workday to visit their polling center and cast their vote.
• No Meetings: We are asking that managers do not hold meetings on Election Day to provide employees with enough flexibility to get out and vote.
• Lunch on Election Day: As an added bonus, employees who exercise their right to vote will be rewarded with lunch on Election Day (the coveted “I voted” sticker will serve as their ticket)
• Registering to Vote: Bandwidth will provide employees with directions, if they are not yet registered to vote and need to know how

We have joined this campaign, spearheaded by Patagonia, with companies in 41 states including Southwest Airlines, Kaiser Permanente, Lyft, KIND, PayPal, Walmart and many more, to come together, starting with the November 6th elections, to increase voter turnout.  We all care about our workforces and supporting democracy.