Volunteering in the community used to be characterised by employees getting involved in hands-on projects – from painting schools to planting trees – often for teambuilding purposes. Now employees are increasingly encouraged to volunteer in ways that make the best use of their core skills.

This is a different model of volunteering. The emphasis is on using the skills employees hone through their everyday work rather than seeing volunteering as an opportunity to do something outside their core competencies.

Convincing employees that their everyday skills are the most useful to the charitable sector can be a challenge. Vodafone UK Foundation head Sarah Shillito says: “We’re trying to encourage our employees to understand that going out and teaching someone how to create an Excel spreadsheet is incredibly useful. It often doesn’t occur to them that this is an asset that they have to offer.”

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