Is your volunteering policy a genuine culture-driver or just a line in the staff handbook? While 62% of UK firms now offer paid volunteering leave, a staggering 140 million hours went unclaimed last year. This isn't just a missed social goal – it’s a massive 'purpose gap' costing the UK economy £32.5bn in lost productivity. For HR, the real challenge is moving beyond the 'tick-box' perk to create a strategy that actually works for a modern workforce.
Join this People Management Insight webinar, in partnership with the charity Royal Voluntary Service, to discover how business leaders are gaining a competitive edge. We’ll discuss how to cut through the red tape and provide the flexible volunteering opportunities your people actually want.
We’ll explore how to activate participation – from leading visibly at senior level, to removing access barriers, to making volunteering simple and trackable. It’s time to turn unused into a measurable driver of wellbeing, retention and social value.
What we’ll cover:
- The ROI: Why volunteering generates £5,239 in productivity per professional
- Inclusive access: Engaging everyone from deskless workers to hybrid teams
- Wellbeing: Reducing annual sickness absence by nearly a full day per person
- Hard evidence: Tracking real-time data to prove ESG impact in tenders
- Activation strategies: Lead from the front, remove friction and use tools like GoVo to drive uptake and business impact
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Karen Gurney is a Volunteer Development and Experience Manager at Oxfam, where she drives improvements in recruitment, engagement and induction. With over 15 years’ experience in volunteer management and programme development, she champions inclusive, flexible and empowering volunteer experiences. Karen has led major organisational initiatives including Oxfam’s nationwide volunteer engagement survey, redesigned the charity’s volunteer induction process and set up Oxfam’s corporate volunteering programme.
Abi is Responsible Business Director at Centrica, leading the energy company’s charitable giving programmes including their commitment to contribute 100,000 days of volunteering time to local communities by 2030. With 25 years’ experience across sustainability, marketing and corporate-charity collaboration, Abi is a passionate advocate for the role of business in driving social impact.
Emma is Chief Operating Officer at Royal Voluntary Service, leading the charity’s digital transformation, commercial and capability growth. Notably, she's recently led the development of GoVo - a new digital volunteering platform being rolled out nationally, as well as the corporate and consulting solutions that go with it.
With a background in strategy and operations at Accenture and WPP, Emma has spent her career helping organisations grow, simplify and deliver impact.
A people-focused leader, Emma brings a practical perspective on how technology, design and culture combine to drive change - and how purpose-led organisations can use innovation to scale what works.
Daniel Wain runs his own learning and development (L&D) consultancy, training and coaching across the world in a range of business, communication and relationship skills. He is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, a Fellow of the Market Research Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, as well as a full member of the Society of Authors, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and the UK actors’ union Equity. He started his business career as a market researcher over 30 years ago, before moving into business development and then L&D.
His last ‘proper job’ was as Worldwide Director of L&D at Research International, part of the WPP Group. Since founding Daniel Wain Consulting Limited in 2007, his clients have included Avon, the BBC, BT, Capita, Coca-Cola, GfK NOP, Hewlett-Packard, the House of Commons, Ipsos MORI, Kantar, McCann, Ofcom, PwC, Telia Sonera, Tesco Bank, Transport for London, the U.S. Embassy in London, Utility Warehouse and Waitrose.
Daniel is also an accomplished and award-winning conference speaker and chair, as well as a regular contributor to a variety of business and academic magazines and journals. He has been a fellow or lecturer at several UK business schools, as well as a Visiting Professor at the IE Business School in Madrid. His passion is theatre: he runs his own semi-professional company, is a published playwright, a multi-award-winning actor and recently made his debut as a film director!