With the rise in levels of employee volunteering, long may it continue, we are seeing marked differences between those who do it well and those who do it … hmm, less well.
Any business who gives its employees time to support their local community or other charity cause is alright in my book, but this sector of work and activity is now, at last, developing to be more impactful and sophisticated so to meet the aims of the business, the community and the employee volunteer together.
There are many businesses who do great and ever improving work and community initiatives, the ones we tend to hear about, but there are also many other businesses who only need to make a few adjustments in their approach and practice to achieve much better results and impact.
Just getting agreement and organising a particular date for staff to volunteer can be a huge undertaking, something the voluntary and charity sector often don’t appreciate, but here are a few general DOs and DON’Ts to help maximise the impact of the effort your business is making:
DON’T do super large team volunteer events (e.g. 200-300 volunteers) without the expectation that the options available and its impact will likely be very limited. Some would say DON’T EVER do such large volunteer events. A business should always be clear about its own objectives for participating, but an activity must come from a genuine community need to have an impact.
Therefore, DO consider splitting your group into teams that can meet a real community need.
DON’T expect to carry out a team volunteer event without some sort of budget. Businesses should never pay to volunteer, but like any event there is a lot of time spent in organising the situation to enable people to volunteer as well as the cost of materials and equipment that will likely be needed. If a business were to organise it themselves, which some businesses do, then they have to spend money on staff time which is more expensive than using a broker or working directly with the charity itself. Brokers and charities need to recover their costs of carrying out this work, as they have staff to pay too. It is occasionally possible for businesses to carry out such work without a charge, but in these cases this will be because the cost is being paid for by someone else (funded project, charity donations etc.).
So, DO have a budget for your employee volunteering as you recognise that the voluntary and charity sector also has costs to recover. If you don’t have a budget, that is okay, but you need to accept what you will be able to do is going to be very limited. The statement by the national Employer Supported Volunteering Network is helpful:
‘Companies or individuals should not have to pay to volunteer, however, where time and resources are needed to enable this volunteering to happen, charities and voluntary organisations should charge for this work to recover their costs.’
You can download the full national ESV Network statement explaining why business need a budget for volunteering events here.
A response to government departments and public sector organisations who say they cannot spend money on volunteering? If you spend money on other events such as training, team-building and staff development, then you should be able to spend money on volunteering events? You can develop your staff and do good at the same time.
DON’T back out or ‘postpone’ at the last minute. Volunteering will never be the business’s top priority and there will always be events and situations where other things take precedence, but once you commit to a date and a project you should stick to it unless it is a true business critical emergency. Backing out will damage your business’s reputation and credibility within the community.
When you DO commit to an event, consider a back-up plan for what to do if an important work situation arises. For example, are there other staff that can cover or should a few members of the team not participate to deal with anything that comes in?
DON’T forget the experience of the volunteer. An employee volunteer will (and very much does!) question what impact they are actually making by carrying out this work? The cause of the charity can be worthy and the importance of team-building is needed, but if the volunteer is not having a great experience then it can have a damaging effect.
So, DO put the experience of the volunteer at the forefront when considering possible projects and evaluate their experiences afterwards. This is where employer supported volunteering (ESV) brokers are so helpful to businesses, as they can source different community project options to meet your needs.
DON’T just think about team volunteering. For the last few years it has been ‘en vogue’ to criticise and sneer at team volunteering and I’ve heard people say “What actual good can a bunch of accountants do painting a community hall?”. Well, they can do a lot and achieve something that otherwise could not happen! I have seen this first hand many times. As long as there is a real need for the team of volunteers and the project is well managed with volunteers briefed and supervised you can achieve great results.
However, DO consider Skills-Based Volunteering options where volunteers can use their professional skills in a new context and environment. When carried out properly, although be prepared that it does require some work and support, it can achieve the greatest impact of all employee volunteering. Some skills-based volunteering can be carried out in teams (e.g. employability workshops), but there is also a huge scope for individuals and very small groups to support voluntary and charity sector organisations in a wide and ever-growing range of activities as well as the possibility of mentoring individuals.
DON’T think you know it all (as none of us do). I’ve seen employee volunteering schemes start up and then shut down, for varying reasons, but one commonality is that the company had decided on an approach without proper consultation with experts in the voluntary and charity sector. As a result they set up seemingly logical and sensible programmes and then seemed confused when they didn’t work? Simply because they didn’t understand how this sector operates.
So DO listen to and ask experts in the field and continuously monitor and adapt your programme to ensure your business, the charity and the volunteer are all being considered. Using ESV brokers and consultants to help test and evaluate your schemes will help ensure a successful employee volunteering programme.
So, if your business does all the DOs then you are on the right track and doing things the right way. However, if your business is doing some of the DON’Ts, then don’t despair, you can easily correct this and be able to achieve more impactful results.
Dominic Pinkney's World of Volunteering 