More firms offer time and talent

Business Times - 02 Jun 2009

CORPORATE volunteerism is on the rise in Singapore, but companies need to spend more on headcount and training to develop volunteer management capabilities, industry players say.

'In the past few years I've seen more interest in corporate volunteerism,' says Lam Moy Yin, co-founder and vice-chairman of MOVE (Managing & Organising Volunteer Efforts), a professional body for volunteer programme managers.

'People recognise that volunteerism is not just about giving money, it's also about giving time and talent.'

More companies now have human resource policies in place to promote corporate volunteerism, Ms Lam says. And some give staff up to 12 days' paid leave a year to do volunteer work.

Property group CapitaLand, for instance, offers all confirmed staff three days' paid volunteer service leave each year, which they can use to do work to help the needy, the under-privileged or the environment.

And for staff who use all three days to do charitable work, the CapitaLand Hope Foundation will donate $500 to the employee's preferred children's charity.

The foundation was set up to support programmes dedicated to the educational, healthcare and shelter needs of under-privileged youngsters.

New policies

This year, CapitaLand has introduced two new policies to support volunteer work by staff. All confirmed full-time staff are eligible for up to six consecutive weeks of no-pay leave to do under-privileged and green volunteer work in Singapore or overseas, especially in other countries where CapitaLand operates.

Employees can also take up a volunteer/part-time work arrangement for up to six months if they want to volunteer on an extended period and regular basis.

'CapitaLand is constantly on the lookout for opportunities to make use of its multi-sector and extensive geographic reach to contribute back to the community,' says Tan Bee Leng, the group's vice-president for corporate social responsibility (CSR).

'Staff are notified of corporate volunteer activities through mass e-mails and Internet postings.'
But supportive HR policies need to be backed up by investment in resources.

MOVE's Ms Lam says: 'In the past two or three years, more companies have begun to see the benefits of CSR and are willing to invest in headcount to manage their corporate volunteer programmes. Putting best practices in place means corporate volunteerism programmes can be sustainable.'

Companies first need to hire people who are experienced at managing volunteer programmes.

Pioneer

A pioneer in this area is HSBC Bank, which has a three-person corporate sustainability team in Singapore.

HSBC, which has been here since 1877, has been providing service and support to the community in one way or another for many years.

In recent years, it has made education, the environment and volunteerism priorities in its community relations effort, and has staff whose main job is to manage these efforts.

Ms Lam says it is essential to ensure that people who are in charge of corporate volunteer programmes are properly trained.

MOVE, which was set up in 2006, aims to do just that.

The organisation, which took over training volunteer managers when the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre (NVPC) outsourced that function last year, has trained about 80-100 people since October 2008.

MOVE conducts one or two training sessions a month. It brings in trainers from places such as the UK and Australia, where the culture of corporate volunteerism is longer established.

However, most of the people trained so far have been from non-profit organisations, Ms Lam says.

'Corporations are still a little slow when it comes to seeing the need for volunteer management training,' she adds.

But the mindset has begun to change, she says.

'Companies are beginning to realise they cannot be haphazard when it comes to corporate volunteerism,' Ms Lam notes.