If you commute into Westminster to work, you might wonder why help is needed. It's the seat of government, there's all those wonderful shops and neon lights flashing out global brands. So the following statistic might come as a surprise. Some wards in Westminster are in the bottom 40 of the 354 most deprived in the country, with high levels of homelessness, child poverty and unemployment.
Sam Jennings and Dawn Newton of Time & Talents spoke of their organisation's work:
• creating partnerships with employers and charities
• connecting people - sharing skills through volunteering
Statistics provided of the 150 projects have brokered between their 25 employer partners and 50 charities in the past year, providing examples of volunteering hosted in the workplace:
- workplace talk and tours for local job seekers
- recruitment consultants advising 14-19 year olds on preparing for interviews
- HR, marketing and PR experts advising charities through workshops
- business/charity peer-mentoring schemes
Brainstorming!What were attendees hoping to get from the workshops?
- find internship opportunities for school pupils
- understand the goals/priorities of both those volunteering and those who needed the help
- improve relations with the local community
- develop a 'lighter footprint' for voluntary work - although a one-off session is sometimes relevant (painting a community centre, clearing a garden), often short but regular, sustainable stints is what's really needed
- emphasise the need to define expectations on both sides before beginning the voluntary work
Hat trick of successful project case studies hosted in the workplace
In the examples below Time & Talents matched up those organisations seeking help with those who wanted to volunteer and had the necessary skills to make the partnership a success.
Work simulation: Microsoft and Pimlico Academy Angie French (Microsoft) and Edward James (Pimlico Academy)Microsoft (who kindly hosted the event in their Victoria office) takes its corporate responsibility seriously. Its employees are granted three days' volunteering a year within company time.
In this instance, Angie described, they wanted to show local school pupils that working for Microsoft was something within their reach, which they might not have realised.
A group of students from Pimlico Academy came into Microsoft's office. But this wasn't just a grand tour and then back to school. They had some hard work to do - design an advertising campaign for one of Microsoft's products. This was a real-life example, slightly modified to suit the pupils. Each group, helped by one of the company's experts, had to prepare their campaign and then pitch it to a panel of Microsoft staff.
At first shy and reluctant, the students soon proved they could think critically and imaginatively and began to develop their presentation skills. Much to the delight of their Microsoft mentors, each student participated in the presentation pitch.
Angie admits that Microsoft, too, derived much from the day. It gave them access to an age group whose opinion on their products is often hard to obtain. The company has committed to letting the students know how the real advertising campaign goes.
Mock interviews in the workplace: Department of Health (DH) and the Cardinal Hume Centre (CHC) Claire Phillips (DH) and Hilary Nightingale and Corin Pilling (CHC)The CHC supports homeless young people and badly housed families, as well as local people with little or no income. They enable people to gain the skills they need to break out of poverty and build better lives.
Hilary explained how they were looking to work with one committed corporate partner willing to host mock interviews on their premises in order to help those people who might be overwhelmed in a corporate environment, were getting to the interview stage but then failing to get jobs. Claire described how the DH wanted to develop an ongoing relationship with a charity. She wanted a group of people to get involved but, because of work commitments, they could perhaps volunteer on a rota basis.
The DH volunteers checked the jobseekers' CVs and answers to competency questions and gave feedback. Mock interviews were hosted in a professional environment with a lead interviewer and an observer who might spot why an individual was failing to secure a job at this stage.
Candidates got some real workplace experience and the practice helped build their confidence and increased their chances of getting paid work.
The candidate could be given oral feedback immediately if they wanted but written comments were also sent to CHC employment officers to provide further support to clients. It was agreed that feedback should be honest, but constructive.
Client case study: Sara had never been to an interview in the UK before and was unfamiliar with the process. She is from Eastern Europe where their approach is slightly different. Richard from Cardinal Hume arranged the mock interview for her at DH with Amy Nicholas and Andie Michael and she came back from the experience having learnt a great deal. She did not quite grasp the idea of ‘competency based’ interview questions and the feedback she received was very useful in helping her to understand them. The feedback not only provided constructive criticism, but very good advice and suggestions as well. Using the feedback I was able to help Sara to familiarize herself more with different types of competency based questions and how to structure her answers correctly.
Three weeks later, Sara was invited to a real interview with a well known bank for an internship position. She was able to put to use her newly developed skills and felt much more confident in an interview scenario. It all paid off very well for her as she was offered the internship post and started yesterday. She is over the moon and so grateful for the support that she was given by everyone involved.
Claire emphasised the need for good reconnaissance on both sides to ensure the success of such a project.
Marketing campaign: Whizz-Kidz and I.T Job Board (part of SThree) Kat Hopps (Whizz-Kidz)I.T Job Board offered to help the charity Whizz-Kidz with their campaign, The Blue Peter Go Cardz Appeal. The charity provides disabled children with the wheelchairs and mobility equipment they need for an active childhood.
Whizz-Kidz had won the Blue Peter Go Cardz Christmas Appeal and viewers had been asked to design Christmas cards. Volunteers would pack the cards in the Whizz-Kidz Fulfilment Centre and Tesco agreed to sell them in their stores.
Working with the charity, the I.T Job Board developed an online marketing strategy for the campaign:
- engaging media agency Mediacom to conduct audience profiling and define the target market
- compiling a list of sites to target for free media coverage
- creating buzz with a viral game from Tamba, hosted on the Whizz-Kidz website and Facebook
- selling it to the national media
The campaign was a huge success with the appeal raising £25,000 for Whizz-Kidz.
Small Group WorkshopThree discussion groups were arranged, where delegates exchanged ideas and discussed:
- employability and enterprise
- charity capacity building
- community building
To end the event, the delegates reassembled to share the main points of their discussions and to thank Microsoft for hosting the event before heading off for some nibbles and informal networking.
How did we do?Here's some feedback from those attending:
- Some really good new ideas for skills sharing. Plus the idea that facilitating a workshop would be a good way to contribute to TTW
- Time away from the office to reflect on practices and refresh contacts and develop network
- Networking & interactive discussion very useful
- Great networking opportunity and chance to share ideas
- Gained good understanding of the types of volunteering other companies are involved in
- Learned about the rationale behind companies approaches to volunteering
- Great opportunity to understand more about the local community needs, really liked the group discussions!
- Great ideas on how ESV can benefit employers to up skill staff
- Encouraged me as partnerships development office to just contact more companies and see what they are interested in! And we work with them?
- It’s very good to see companies seem to be more interested in volunteering opportunities that actually benefit the charity – rather than just themselves like it seemed a few years ago
- Got lots of ideas for launching a CSR/volunteering programme within my organisation
This article was kindly written by a Employee Volunteer: Susan Hinchsliffe – Dept for Transport
