This impact evaluation was carried out by the Institute of Volunteering Research for Barclays Bank during 2004.
Barclays has seen continued growth in employer supported volunteering over the past three years, with participation more than doubling between 2001 and 2000.
Engaging employees in the community
Barclays has been successful at engaging employees that have previously not been regular volunteeers and has acted as a catalyst to encourage employees to get further involved in the community.
21% of employer supported volunteers had never volunteered before and 47% were not regularly taking part in volunteering.
34% of volunteers have been encouraged to undertake other community activities outside work time.
Impacts on employees
Employees reported a range of impacts, from persona gains such as increased confidence and self-esteem, to soft and hard work skills including teamwork, communication, leadership and project management.
Volunteers reported gaining a greater understanding of the needs and problems of their local communities and an increased sense of empathy with local people.
Managers saw the greatest impacts on their employees in terms of increased communication and leadership skills.
Impacts on Barclays
Employer supported volunteering has had a number of positive impacts on Barclays, including increasing employees’ pride in the company, increasing job satisfaction, improving team working and raising Barclay’s profile i9n local communities. These can have knock-on effects in terms of recruitment and retention.
49% of managers saw employer supported volunteering as “very effective as a team building exercise”, while a further 39% rated it as “quite effective”.
More volunteers than non-volunteers would recommend Barclays as an employer (67% of volunteers compared with 58% of non-volunteers).
Help for community organisations
The wider community benefits enormously from the skills and resources of Barclays and its volunteers.
84% of organisations were very satisfied with the experience of involving Barclays’ employee volunteers, and a further 13 % were quite satisfied.
94% of organisations want to develop the relationship with Barclays.
This summary is taken from Employer Supported Volunteering – the guide. This new publication, published by Volunteering England and written in collaboration with Business in the Community and supported by Abbey, will tell you everything you need to know about employer supported volunteering.
