Member Article

East Midlands employees swap office life for school days to volunteer for Give and Gain Day

Around 100 volunteers from five leading Nottingham companies organised a fun-packed literacy relay for 150 children from three of the city’s primary schools as part of national Give and Gain Day 2015 run by the charity Business in the Community (BITC).

TDX Group, Siemens, Freeths, Nottingham Trent University and Yorkshire Bank gave their staff time off to volunteer at The Bluecoat Beechdale Academy, Bilborough, where they ran activities based on the popular adventure story ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’. Pupils from Robert Shaw, Glenbrook and Jubilee schools competed in teams with the business volunteers.

As the East Midlands volunteers stepped up to help the project, new research published by the Prince of Wales’ charity BITC to mark Give & Gain Day , suggests that 57% of workers in the Midlands do not know, or are not aware, of their employer’s employee volunteering policy, compared to the national figure of 76%.

The Ipsos MORI survey of 2,174 online adults aged 18+ in Great Britain assessed views on business behaviour. Among workers in the Midlands, it found around only 4% reporting that they have used their employer’s volunteering scheme. A further 6% are aware of their employer’s volunteering scheme, but their primary reason for not using it is a lack of time.

Liz Needleman, area director of BITC England East, said: “Skilled volunteers are a lifeline for community organisations hit by cuts, yet as our research shows there is more to be done to embed volunteering as part of everyday business. The companies that took part today are beacons of best practice in helping to build a fairer society and more sustainable communities. We urge many more business to get involved in volunteering and ask those who are involved to use it as a springboard into deeper long term business engagement in their local area.”

The East Midlands volunteers were among more than 15,500 from UK businesses who headed out to help 144 local communities on May 15 for the world’s only day of employee volunteering, organised annually by BITC. The total value of staff time invested in the day’s volunteering throughout the UK is estimated at more than £1.9million.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Business In the Community .