News and commentary from the February/March edition of Corporate Citizenship Briefing, issue 104
Volunteer workers better equipped for jobs, survey shows
Two surveys conducted by by youth volunteering charity V in conjunction with YouGov and One Poll has found that 41% of 16-25s say that the current economic climate has made them feel more likely to try out volunteering to help equip them for the workforce. In addition, out of over 500 employers surveyed, 69% had done voluntary work in their lifetime, with over half stating that volunteering gave them people skills which helped them get to where they are today. Half of employers say that job candidates with volunteering experience are more motivated than other candidates. Contact: V www.vinspired.com
Campaign calls end to people being forced into cash-in-hand jobs
A new campaign launched on February 24 called on government to help people trapped into low paid cash-in-hand work when they could be helping the UK economy. The Need NOT Greed campaign aims to help people escape the traps of often exploitative informal work with no legal status and poor work conditions. The informal economy is estimated at 12.3% of the UK GDP, approximately £120 billion. The campaign affirms that the current economic climate provides an ideal time to explore innovative solutions to tackling poverty and unemployment whilst creating new enterprises out of informal work. Contact: Community Links www.neednotgreed.org.uk
HSE launches new website to prevent work-related stress
On March 2 the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) unveiled a new website to help businesses prevent work-related stress. The website includes advice and guidance, tools to help prevent stress at work, a self-assessment questionnaire for line managers, case studies and good practical examples of methods that have worked well for other organisations. The focus of the new website will be the Management Standards for work-related stress which have already been used successfully by many organisations. Contact Health and Safety Executive www.hse.gov.uk
National employment partnership meets for the first time
On February 11 some of the UK’s leading employers pledged their support to get people back in work at the first meeting of the National Employment Partnership (NEP), hosted by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions James Purnell. In the first meeting of the NEP, Government has asked members to pledge to a number of initiatives including; advertising their non-specialist vacancies through Jobcentre Plus, filling more of the jobs they create through the Local Employment Partnerships (LEPs) and other new measures, including recruitment subsidies for those unemployed over 6 months, with government aiming to get 200,000 people into work through LEPs this year. Contact: Department for Work and Pensions www.dwp.gov.uk
Comment
Catching glimpses of a silver lining in the current cloud of recession is a largely thankless task. However, since previous economic downturns, it seems that some employers have learnt their lessons about redundancy and its associated impacts for both employees and companies. This could provide a little encouraging news, particularly, if managed imaginatively, for the voluntary sector.
Rather than make people redundant, with all its attendant costs both personal and financial, there is a clear appetite from firms to find alternatives. Four-day weeks, sabbaticals and temporary lay-offs are being explored by companies such as Honda, KPMG and Siemens, keen to hang on to good people and avoid the expense and time required to train new staff once things pick up.
This is an encouraging reflection of the understanding that companies have of the investment made in their workforce and the false economy of simply letting people go. Of course, reducing people’s hours and the respective drop in salary is not good news for the individuals or companies involved but it does produce a really valuable by-product: Time.
Enterprising employees, companies and charities have an opportunity to make use of this time for the good of the community, as well as to keep skills honed, by identifying volunteering opportunities for staff to take up during times when they are not able to work.
If companies work with their charity partners to provide voluntary opportunities for staff who might be on a four day week, employees will be able to put new found spare time to valuable use and charities can access the expertise of often highly skilled workers. It also sets employees up well, should things worsen and the spectre of actual redundancy beckon, to demonstrate additional commitment, motivation and experience to prospective employers.
COMMENTS