Participants noted the importance of developing skills based opportunities but also recognised that there was a lack of brokerage resources to effectively match these opportunities. Volunteering Staffordshire was given as an example of a brokerage system funded by Staffordshire County Council; it matches opportunities and provides support for charities. However the funding is coming to an end and a system of charging will be put in place. The concern is that businesses will stop using this system if they have to pay. Yet this infrastructural support is essential to enabling charities to engage. Without such support participants argued that charities find it difficult to identify what ESV can offer them and to pitch exactly what they want from business. Brokers talked of the difference between maintenance volunteering and progressive volunteering but they are too often bundled together and may not suit employee volunteers. It was felt that ESV offers on websites need to be thought through in more detail so that they are feasible for employers. One gave an example from the CVS website that advertised a vacancy for a minibus driver every Thursday morning. He added that it was unlikely for any business to release someone so often but they may have employees who would help with a marketing plan. Signposting was also a key issue, since businesses found it confusing to negotiate the brokerage landscape. Capacity Gap Businesses - Discussion of the capacity gap was seen as key by several participants. One key element highlighted by businesses was the capacity gap they faced around engaging a greater proportion of employees in ESV. One business participant conceptualised this eloquently as the of “The hourglass volunteering”: You have your leadership that are really keen at promoting it and you have people that are nearer to the communities that are really keen to get involved but the pinch point is the middle management who have to balance the targets and the job and therefore necessarily release their employees out to don’t
Participants noted the importance of developing skills based opportunities but also recognised that there was a lack of brokerage resources to effectively match these opportunities. Volunteering Staffordshire was given as an example of a brokerage system funded by Staffordshire County Council; it matches opportunities and provides support for charities. However the funding is coming to an end and a system of charging will be put in place. The concern is that businesses will stop using this system if they have to pay. Yet this infrastructural support is essential to enabling charities to engage. Without such support participants argued that charities find it difficult to identify what ESV can offer them and to pitch exactly what they want from business. Brokers talked of the difference between maintenance volunteering and progressive volunteering but they are too often bundled together and may not suit employee volunteers. It was felt that ESV offers on websites need to be thought through in more detail so that they are feasible for employers. One gave an example from the CVS website that advertised a vacancy for a minibus driver every Thursday morning. He added that it was unlikely for any business to release someone so often but they may have employees who would help with a marketing plan. Signposting was also a key issue, since businesses found it confusing to negotiate the brokerage landscape. Capacity Gap Businesses - Discussion of the capacity gap was seen as key by several participants. One key element highlighted by businesses was the capacity gap they faced around engaging a greater proportion of employees in ESV. One business participant conceptualised this eloquently as the “The hourglass of volunteering”: You have your leadership that are really keen at promoting it and you have people that are nearer to the communities that are really keen to get involved but the pinch point is the middle management who have to balance the targets and the job and therefore don’t necessarily release their employees out to
ESV_Regional_Workshop_Manchester_Final_Summary_Document.docx