Staff across all departments of the social housing company, are encouraged to give up hours in their working day to take part in various voluntary opportunities. It follows the company’s ambitious target of providing 400 opportunities for colleagues to volunteer over the year.
Together Housing’s drive to implement volunteering within its framework also allows each member of staff to use two of their working days to volunteer. The company’s mission also strengthens its commitment to its charity of the year – The Alzheimer’s Society – who offer their own annual opportunities to staff.
Recently, Together Housing’s Neighbourhood Officers took to the streets of a Blackburn housing estate to carry out a voluntary litter pick. Residents were informed that a handful of skips would be placed around their streets, ready for them to make use of.
Once dropped off, within a matter of minutes, the skips were filled to the brim with bulky household waste. Together Housing employee, Fatima Aziz spent the morning volunteering with fellow colleagues.
She said: “I recently joined Together Housing’s Neighbourhood Coordinators for a litter pick event around the Galligreaves estate in Blackburn. It was great to be able to use my time at work to give back to one of many communities we’re involved with.
The day offered me the chance to speak to colleagues, and importantly, to speak to residents too who were all eager to discuss why clean up events are so important to them. As well as having the skips available, myself and other colleagues took to the streets and began litter picking.
It’s a very rewarding task to be responsible for cleaning an area, especially after seeing the many bin bags we filled in just a few hours. Having never taken part in a voluntary litter pick before, I’m grateful I got given such an opportunity within my workplace, not everyone gets time off specifically to give back to the community.”
Nigel Jones Group Director of People for Together Housing said: “We’re passionate about giving our staff as many options to volunteer as possible. That’s why volunteering is a key part of our Corporate Plan and the Social Value Strategy.
We actively promote our colleagues to take part in volunteering opportunities which will benefit the local communities, the company and our staff themselves. It’s brilliant to see so many opportunities being organised by our neighbourhoods and maintenance teams who continue to do a great job on our estates, now with the helping hand of other colleagues too.”
