It's volunteering but not as you know it

If you say 'volunteering' to employees they usually immediately think of practical projects like gardening, decorating, or helping in charity shops. Few would have that initial image in their heads of volunteering whilst still sitting at their desks.

But in this virtual and technological world we live in, the volunteering world really is your oyster.

Take the 'Call in Time' programme that we developed with our charity partner Age UK and which now has 18 corporate supporters fielding volunteers. The scheme works with older people who are lonely and isolated and matches them up to an employee volunteer who commits to telephone their older friend once a week, at an agreed time, for a half hour chat. Several of our volunteers have been doing this for over three years now. It makes such a difference to the older person who would otherwise have their TV as their main company and may often go days without talking to a sole. (who remembers last year's John Lewis Christmas advert - the man on the moon?) For the volunteers they make a friend, learn about new things and history, sometimes, hone a few business related skills along the way such as listening skills and assertiveness skills in terms of ending the calls positively. So if the idea of making an older persons life less isolated doesn't swing it for any business leaders reading this in terms of giving the business time commitment to it - maybe the customer service relevant skills that will be hones and the volunteers' increased pride in working for their employer might?

But, as I eluded to in my previous blog, http://skills-exchange2017.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/everyones-winner-what-possible-skills.html volunteering doesn't come for free. This whole programme is sustainable as companies pay to be members of it based on how many volunteers they contribute. This money pays the core funding of the small team at Age UK who make it work. They provide training to the volunteers; they match older people and volunteers based on interests and personality; they monitor the system where volunteers confirm the calls have been made; they will swing into action if the older person has an issue that needs addressing; they will make the call if the volunteer is on holiday or called away to an urgent meeting and they will manage the inevitable sensitive conversations when the volunteer is no longer needed to call their older friend and provide support during this sad period. What sounds on the surface a simple idea that anyone could do for nothing - is not quite so simple when you get to the detail.

If your company is interested in learning more about this scheme or if you work for Zurich and are interested in volunteering contact jane.boulton@zct.org.uk.

How many of you use webinars as communication vehicles at work? How many of you have skills that are valuable to the voluntary sector? How many voluntary sector folk would welcome free training which they can access from their desk with no transport or course fees and in bite size sessions not taking whole days out of their stretched resource? It's a match made in heaven. We've run skills based webinar training on topics charities have told us they want to learn more on such as effective presentation skills and social media. How good would you feel having trained 50 colleagues in the voluntary sector on something you take for granted every day - in an 45 min webinar + some prep time? And how useful would it be to you and your company to hone your skills delivering webinars?

I rest my case. So I'm not saying put down the spades and paint brushes as that's valuable volunteering too and lets face it, probably far more fun - but step into the modern world of volunteering and see what your every days tools like telephones and PC's can do when unleashed!

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