Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/crop-volunteer-caressing-adorable-dog-with-tongue-out-6568946/
Royal Voluntary Service has unveiled a consultancy service designed to help businesses unlock the full wellbeing, engagement and performance benefits of employee volunteering.
The move comes as evidence grows that volunteering programmes can strengthen employee health and workplace culture, while also delivering wider social impact.
Research by Royal Voluntary Service and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) shows that businesses where volunteering days are actively used report significantly stronger outcomes. These include higher motivation (53 per cent vs 42 per cent), greater wellbeing and engagement (52 per cent vs 37 per cent), and improved employee confidence and skills (37 per cent vs 33 per cent).
Yet uptake of volunteering opportunities remains limited. According to the research, 62 per cent of businesses now offer volunteering days to employees, but participation is low. Around 140m hours of paid volunteering went unused last year, with employees missing out on wellbeing benefits and employers failing to capture the potential performance gains.
Emma Gervasio, Chief Operating Officer at Royal Voluntary Service, said the consultancy is designed to change that:
“Volunteering isn’t just good for society, it’s good for business. Our new consultancy service is about helping employers transform their volunteering programmes and those millions of unused hours into wellbeing gains, stronger engagement and meaningful ESG outcomes.”
The consultancy offers a flexible service that can be adapted to businesses at different stages. For those just beginning, Royal Voluntary Service will help develop a business case, align policies with company culture and values, and engage employees in the programme. For companies with established initiatives, support focuses on scaling impact, improving participation and measuring outcomes more effectively.
The service also helps organisations design partnership strategies, build internal champions and create reporting frameworks to evidence outcomes. This allows companies to demonstrate how volunteering supports both employee wellbeing and corporate ESG goals.
This deep-dive assessment reviews the maturity of a company’s volunteering scheme, highlighting gaps such as unused volunteer hours or unlinked ESG objectives. It benchmarks performance against best practice and generates a strategic roadmap for growth.
Saima Rasool, consultant at Royal Voluntary Service and development lead for the new consultancy, said:
“More and more organisations are recognising employee volunteering as not just a nice-to-have but a commercial opportunity. It’s an effective way to build employee engagement, strengthen resilience and drive social impact. Our consultancy and Diagnostic Tool are designed to help businesses harness that potential and tie volunteering programmes more closely to organisational goals.”
The consultancy forms part of Royal Voluntary Service’s new Volunteering Marketplace. This also includes a digital volunteering platform, developed with support from People’s Postcode Lottery, which will launch later this year. The platform aims to make volunteering more flexible and accessible, expanding opportunities across the UK and helping charities connect with the volunteers they need.
All profits from the consultancy will be reinvested into the platform and into Royal Voluntary Service’s community support activities. This creates a model where businesses investing in volunteering services also directly contribute to wider social good.
Gervasio added:
“If employee volunteering hours were fully utilised, the UK economy could see an annual productivity uplift worth £32.5bn. We want to help companies realise this opportunity, while creating meaningful wellbeing gains for their people and a stronger impact for society.”
The consultancy is available immediately, with the digital platform expected to launch in the autumn.
