Volunteers' Week – celebrating the difference volunteers make in our local community

This year SSE celebrates five years of its employee volunteering programme, Community at Heart, and I thought there is no better week than Volunteers’ Week (1 – 7 June) to look back on the success of our scheme and the impact our very own SSE volunteers have made.

Community at Heart gives every one of our employees the opportunity to take a day’s paid leave from their normal work duties to support organisations and projects that matter in their local community.  With around 20,000 employees, the scheme plays an important role in SSE being able to make a difference in the communities where we live and work.

We’ve helped a wide range of projects over the past five years, everything from painting and decorating theatres and community centres; gardening and path clearing at schools and conservation sites; provided interview training for school pupils; treated elderly residents to carol singing and even walked retired greyhounds at a dog rescue centre.

It doesn’t matter how big or small the project or cause, what’s important is that our input will help make a difference to someone or something.

Since Community at Heart’s launch in 2009, our employees have dedicated over 24,000 days (the equivalent of 194,000 hours) to thousands of deserving projects right across Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales. In addition, 40% of our employees took part in the scheme last year which, we believe, is well above the industry average.

I think a key reason why it has been such a huge success both in engagement terms and the number of projects completed is due to the fact that it’s employee-led - our staff take ownership and are able to choose the projects that are closest to their hearts. And by running the scheme this way, our employees get immense satisfaction and enjoyment from it too.  From a company perspective, we know that the skills employees pick up along the way are transferable too.  It is a classic ‘win- win’ arrangement for everyone.

Justin Davis Smith, Executive Director of Volunteering and Development at NCVO ponders in his blog of having a ‘No Volunteers Week’ and the impact it would have on communities. Sometimes the value of something only becomes really apparent when you consider the impact of taking it away.  SSE agrees wholeheartedly with his comments on the importance of volunteering and the many organisations and projects that survive solely on the contribution from volunteers. And I know that if SSE didn’t have its Community at Heart, it would also be a huge loss for the company, our employees and those projects that we help do great things in our local communities.

The past five years of Community at Heart has made a huge impact – not just on the communities supported but on the company as a whole too.  I’m confident it will continue to make an impact in the future thanks to the dedication and motivation of our big-hearted employees.

Volunteers’ Week is also celebrating an important anniversary too this year, and we’re delighted to join them in the celebrations.

Volunteers’ Week (1-7 June) celebrates the contribution made by millions of volunteers across the UK.  It is run by NCVO, in partnership with Volunteer Development Scotland, Volunteer Now (Northern Ireland) and Wales Council for Voluntary Action.