Corporate volunteering benefits businesses, employees and the wider community, says CIPD

Monday 13 Apr 2015 @ 14:10
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Two in every five large employers already offer paid time for staff to volunteer

Responding to the recent announcement by the Prime Minister*, the CIPD, the professional body for HR, welcomes a focus on the corporate volunteering agenda. A new report from the CIPD, ‘From Big Society to the big organisation: the role of organisations in supporting employee volunteering’, includes survey data that reveals that 39% of large organisations already offer paid time for their employees to take part in volunteering opportunities, with an additional 23% offering unpaid time.

Furthermore, many employers recognise the skills that volunteering opportunities can help individuals to develop. More than nine in ten (93%) of employers who offer time for staff to volunteer believe that it provides a personal development opportunity for employees. The top three skills candidates with volunteering experience demonstrate according to employers, are teamwork (82%), communication (80%) and an understanding of the local community (45%). However, despite these positive findings, currently only 39% claim that volunteering is formally embedded into staff development or engagement plans – a number the CIPD would like to see increase.

Peter Cheese, Chief Executive at the CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development, comments: "Our research shows that corporate volunteering benefits businesses and their employees, as well as the communities in which they work. Not only does it help businesses build stronger roots in their local communities, but it also gives employees an invaluable opportunity to develop new skills and give something back. It can also form part of a new relationship between organisations and their employees, helping them to attract and retain the right talent to meet their wider business objectives.

“We're pleased to see this agenda being championed, one that the CIPD is also committed to. We will be producing additional resources for our members seeking to introduce corporate volunteering in their organisations and embed it into staff development plans, as well as building on the success of our own volunteering opportunities, including our Steps Ahead Mentoring programme. Today’s announcement raises important questions about how the three volunteering days will be administered and resourced and we look forward to consulting with our members and inputting in terms of the details.”

The CIPD already promotes volunteering to its members, as a way for HR professionals to give back whilst also developing their own skills:

Steps Ahead Mentoring is a free, face to face mentoring programme run by the CIPD, designed to draw on our extensive membership network of 130,000 HR professionals, to help young jobseekers in their job search. Over 2,400 CIPD members have signed up as mentors and during the extended pilot, 73% of the young jobseekers who completed the programme went on to find employment. The programme will be expanded to give other jobseekers access to support from a HR professional. Pilots with parent returners to work and older jobseekers have recently been launched.
The CIPD is committed to the Step up To Serve #iwill campaign, as an increase in the number of adult volunteers is required to help achieve the campaign’s aim to increase participation of 10-20-year-olds in meaningful social action. Volunteering also provides opportunities for young people to develop their skills and makes them more employable and the CIPD is currently working with Step up to Serve to develop a resource for employers to help them embed social action in their own recruitment processes.
A CIPD publication, ‘Volunteering to learn: Employee development through community action,’ shows how volunteering activities can have hidden benefits for businesses if they link schemes to staff development. Not only can voluntary activity give staff new and varied opportunities to enhance their skills, but if integrated into the organisation’s wider learning and development strategy, it could have a longer term impact on organisational success.
The CIPD also supports ‘Inspiring the Future’, run by the Education and Employers Taskforce, a free national initiative to get professionals into state schools and colleges to deliver careers insight talks, and CV advice sessions. Over 2,000 CIPD members have signed up to this initiative.

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