Almost 100,000 staff from six retail co-ops have volunteered over 20,000 days on community projects over the past year.
The Co-op News Volunteer Index shows 98,313 employees have given 156,340 hours to their local community over the 2016/17 financial year. This equates to over nine million minutes, or 99 minutes per employee.
The financial cost of paying staff wages during this time to co-ops has been £2.1m.
Nationally, the Co-op Group said one in five of its employees were involved in volunteer efforts. Its Co-op Way report for 2016 said: “We encourage our colleagues to play an active role in the community, whether that’s through fundraising, our formal volunteer programme, setting up, running or participating in community projects or taking part in civic duties.”
It allows colleagues to volunteer in the community for two days each year during work time. The increase in colleagues involved in activity in 2016, compared with 2015, was due to colleagues fundraising for its charity partnership with the British Red Cross, and greater engagement in community activity following the Back to Being Co-op sessions held throughout 2016.
Colleagues also engaged with their local communities throughout summer 2016 to identify thousands of local causes that address the needs and interests of members locally, which helped to identify over 4,000 causes that will benefit from the new Local Community Fund.
Staff at Midcounties dedicated 36,000 to local projects. Of that amount, over 21,000 hours were delivered by staff across its Regional Community areas, which provide support and make positive impacts. The allotted hours doubled from last year (10,500) and allowed employees to help support members to deliver programmes across the area. 234,000 volunteering hours have been provided by staff in the community over the past 10 years.
At Southern Co-op, it said an extra pair of hands can make all the difference to getting a community project off the ground and it encourages colleagues to volunteer to support local good causes. Throughout 2016, employees clocked up 1,000 hours voluntary service, though this was down on previous years since the society ceased arranging group volunteering activities opting for a demand led approach for teams.
It says that this has led to more successful and meaningful volunteering opportunities that drive benefits for both the charities and the participating colleagues. Its focus is now predominantly on the quality of the volunteering and skills sharing/development opportunities for both charity and colleague, as opposed to simply measuring the volume of hours.
