Three Hands - Employee Volunteering - is it really working for charities? 

 

Charities need more ongoing skilled support from employee volunteers, but businesses tend to offer teams for one-off, unskilled projects. Why is this and what are some of the barriers you face?  

● If you want to offer team events for employees then it is very difficult to find skills 

based opportunities that suit everyone. 

● Employees often say they do not want to do the same thing they do at work everyday, 

and see traditionally unskilled opportunities as more enjoyable.  

● Unskilled volunteering can sometimes be seen as more directly helping the 

beneficiaries of the charity - for example painting a wall at a children’s centre - while 

skilled volunteering - helping with social media strategy or finance, for example - is 

less direct.  

● Skilled opportunities are harder to source, and harder to commit to as ongoing 

support is often needed and employees have busy work lives.  

● Employee perception of volunteering is flawed. Most think of t-shirts and painting 

fences and are not aware of all the other possibilities.  

● Employees often are not aware that the skills they have could be valuable to a charity.  

 

 

What can be done to overcome these challenges; what’s worked well in your organisation? 

 

● Third party agents to match skills with opportunities can be useful 

● Volunteering can become a part of Learning & Development, and sold to employees 

as a way to progress.  

● Greater flexibility can help solve problems with time. For example, regular hour or half 

an hour periods instead of entire days. Centrica’s ‘Call in Time’ programme is an 

example of this, where call centre staff work with Age UK to spend short but regular 

periods of time calling beneficiaries.  

● Setting out a broad but clear strategy on the skills you want to focus on as an 

organisation can help focus your efforts.  

● Building long terms relationships with organisations helps impact be more accurately 

measured and the value involved for everyone more clear.  

● Try to be creative with skills based volunteering to ensure that things don’t feel like 

just another day in the office. 

● Include volunteering right from the get go - make it a part of your onboarding process.  

 

 

 

 

 

Discussion 2 - Barclays - Best practice and lessons learned 

 

● If volunteering is seen as a way for employees to develop and grow, rather than solely 

as a philanthropic endeavour, which budget should it come out of? HR, Community 

Engagement, L&D?  

● Some companies are moving away from putting a cap on volunteering limits, trusting 

employees to manage their own time. This can allow for greater engagement in the 

relationship and increased commitment.  

● Employee feedback is essential for improving your programme. Look to gather 

feedback 3 - 6 months after the event.  

● Linking fundraising to volunteering has proved successful. For example, donating a 

certain amount to charity for each hour that an employee volunteers.  

● Engaging senior staff is very important. If people are ‘led from the top’ they will have 

the confidence to participate.  

● It is extremely difficult for the retail industry to run successful employee volunteering 

programmes due to challenges with scheduling.  

● In terms of impact, quality of volunteering is always better than quantity.