What is Employee Volunteering?

Whether your company has a staff of 5 or 500, you can boost your public image, motivate your staff and give back to the local community by initiating an employee volunteering programme.

In recent years Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been gaining in importance for many in the business world.

One element of this is how companies can engage with the geographical areas they work in, show that they are a positive force and demonstrate that profits, whilst an important consideration, aren't the only concern for their business.

And a great way to show this is to allow your staff a proportion of their paid work time to be given in a volunteering capacity to a local charity or community group – hence the term 'employee volunteering'.

At first glance, this might seem unrealistic; but by giving your staff the opportunity to access volunteering on your time, you'll reap the benefits as well as the groups that they will be helping.

There are numerous benefits to be gained by starting an Employee Volunteering scheme; both for you as an employer, for your staff, for local charities (and their service users) and for the community at large. For example:

• By actively allowing your staff members work time to pursue other 'worthwhile' activities, you are demonstrating that you value your staff, local groups and the community.

• Often employees are already involved in some form of voluntary activity, so this is a great way of showing that you as an employer recognize the relevance and importance of the work they are doing.

• When a volunteer is placed in a situation that suits them, they'll enjoy what they're doing! This can improve motivation and the general happiness of your workforce, hopefully leading to greater productivity.

• By giving employees the chance to get involved in other areas, your staff retention could improve, as that 'change of scene' or 'a little bit of variety' that we all crave from time to time can be provided by their volunteering.

• Volunteering can be the opportunity for staff to develop new skills, and sometimes even pursue additional qualifications. From a staff development point of view, it's invaluable.

Furthermore, you could find that your public image receives a boost – get yourself known as a company that cares about the Community!

There are several different ways that employee volunteering projects can be structured to ensure it works for you, your staff and the charities that they will be helping, for example:

• You could choose to work in partnership with a local charity – perhaps combining some of your staffs time with ongoing sponsorship or charitable donations.

• A specific one-off project could give you the opportunity to take a proportion of your staff out of the office for, say, a week during which time they could be decorating a local community center, building a sensory garden or going away with a group of children with disabilities.

• You could allocate a certain amount of paid work time per year for volunteering (E.G, up to a maximum of 20/30 hours annually) to each staff member, during which time they could volunteer with a group or charity of their choice.

• You could agree to match employees volunteering time (up to a specified limit per year) – for example, for every hour a week that a staff member volunteers their own free time for, you could match this with 1 hour of paid work time up to 1/2 hours a week.

Whichever option you decide will work best for you, your efforts will be appreciated; however, from a charities point of view, options that allow staff to give small amounts of time on a regular basis (such as matching employees volunteering time or allocating a certain amount of paid work time per year to volunteering) are generally more worthwhile; as they give much more flexibility to the staff members volunteering, and allow employees to join existing programmes run by the charity; as often short term projects can be very difficult to organize, and can sometimes detract from the main aims of the charity (E.G befriending, advice work, fundraising, etc.). This means that the employees support can be sustained over a longer period of time.

SCVS has a dedicated Volunteering team based at our Walter Road offices (See map opposite).

We can help with advice on how to set up your scheme, what policies need to be taken into consideration, and even come in and speak to your staff about volunteering, its benefits and relevance.

Furthermore, if you find that you have a lot of staff who would like to start volunteering, we could provide a one off outreach service to your site, and interview and place your staff without the necessity of them having to visit the Centre itself.

For more information or to discuss setting up a program, please contact Swansea Volunteer Centre on: 01792 544000, or email: scvs@scvs.org.uk

You might also like to have a look at the Business in the Community for more information about employee volunteering and Corporate Social Responsibility.