As an organisation, we are committed to fostering a volunteer-friendly environment for our more than 80,000 employees worldwide.

Our employee volunteering programme allows communities to benefit from the skills and experience of our staff. It helps our employees meet the critical needs of their communities, while gaining knowledge and learning new skills. Additionally, it helps us build stronger relationships with the communities where we operate, while gaining a more engaged, skilled and passionate workforce in return.

In December 2010, we conducted an internal global survey to measure our staff’s opinions on our new employee volunteering strategy. The findings suggested that 74 per cent of respondents believe that employee volunteering increases their job satisfaction, while 81 per cent preferred working for a company that supports employee volunteering.

Innovative ideas to encourage volunteering
In 2010, we worked hard to promote employee volunteering across our business. To celebrate the launch of Here for good, our new brand promise, we increased the leave entitlement for our staff from two days paid leave to three.

We launched a number of new initiatives, including a network of staff champions to encourage a more positive volunteering culture across Standard Chartered, and a bespoke intranet site, iVolunteer, that connect our staff across the world with volunteer opportunities in their communities. In 2010, staff responded to our efforts to make volunteering easier and more impactful. A total of 8041 employee volunteering days or 64,328 man hours were recorded across India, an increase of 400 per cent from the previous year’s volunteering efforts.