Linking Employee Volunteering With Learning and Development

This toolkit offers employers a guide on how to effectively link employee volunteering with learning and development in your business. It also identifies ten steps companies can take to bring together employee volunteering and learning and development.

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The case for employee volunteering

Employee volunteering offers employees the opportunity to volunteer with community-based organisations or projects with the support of their employer. This may be in a programme developed by their employer, focusing on a business-relevant theme e.g. education, employability, health etc. Or in the form of working hours allocated for individual volunteering.

Clear benefits

Companies have identified clear benefits in developing more focussed, skills-based volunteering programmes with regards to staff retention, recruitment of high calibre graduates and employee training opportunities.

Recent research conducted by theCIPD“clearly highlights the ‘double benefit’ of volunteering and identifies ten key skills and behaviours employees can develop through these activities, such as coaching and mentoring, confidence, communication, team-building, self-awareness and creativity.”¹

Showcasing examples from other businesses who are successfully bringing employee volunteering and learning and development together, this toolkit will help you to:

  • understand the business motivations behind linking employee volunteering and professional competencies
  • set clear objectives and a project plan
  • use existing frameworks as a base
  • measure the benefit and communicate your findings
  • review your employee volunteering strategy periodically, recognise volunteers and celebrate success.

References
  1. CIPD (2014) ‘Volunteering to Learn: Employee development through community action’

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