Volunteering charity TimeBank reports this week that employees are reluctant to ask for time off work to volunteer.
This is hardly surprising given the current struggle businesses are in to stay afloat during the recession. Put yourself in a manager’s position; would you rather that your staff take a week off to clean waterways and work with vulnerable children, or stay at work and make as much money as possible for their wages?
It seems like a no-brainer, but taking a closer look, it might not be. TimeBank conducted a survey through a well-known jobs website, bringing in 3,000 responses from staff and jobseekers, as well as 500 employers themselves. Two-thirds of employees and job-seekers said that they were “worried” about asking for the time off to volunteer.
Here’s the tricky part. 83% of employers said that they see voluntary work as valuable experience. That’s something we at JuicyJobs have been saying for a while; a volunteering job can boost your ethical job search enormously, with skills, experience and contacts to boot. Half of the employers in the survey also said, however, that they felt their employees were afraid to ask for the time off.
Now, what’s going on here? Those employers value volunteering jobs, and know their employees might want to volunteer. They also know their employees might not want to come forward. Either, those 50% of employers would rather keep things that way, thank you very much, or they are missing a great opportunity to invest in their staff.
According to Helen Walker, chief executive of TimeBank, volunteering is a great way to boost morale amongst staff. So, if employers are also aware of this, why not give employees the gentle, supporting shove they need to make it all happen?
Some businesses are already cashing in on the benefits of sending their staff volunteering together. Ford Motor Company, whilst not exactly a bastion of green jobs or ethical careers, regularly sends teams of Ford workers out on volunteering schemes with children’s charities, where those workers’ skills are put to good use in, say, refurbishing children’s playgrounds at hospices. In this case, the company pays the staff for the day, and so is effectively donating a days’s work to charity, but a similar principle applies.
If companies across the board were to adopt staff volunteering schemes, think of the long term benefits. Organising set projects for staff to volunteer on would make it much easier for staff to access volunteering, without fearing a rebuke for asking for time off. Staff volunteering together would help to build good working relationships between teams, and, when those staff members return, they might just feel a little more refreshed and ready after breaking the daily grind for a while. In the end, think about the long-term benefits; giving employees a few days off per year for them to come back energised and enthusiastic, whilst making the business look great, can only be good news.
Author
Rachel Charman, a writer for JuicyJobs; Ethical Jobs UK – an environmentally friendly green job search board which offers free job listings to Environmental, NGO’s, NFP’s and ethical companies promoting green, fair trade services and support sustainable living. For job seekers Juicyjobs can help you find the ideal ethical jobs in the UK.
