How offers acrossforopportunitiestheiremployeestheUK CASE STUDY
With roughly 1,000 employees, Auto Trader is a British automotive classified advertising business that specialises in new and second-hand automotive sales. Headquartered in Manchester with smaller offices in London, Dublin, and remote workers dotted around the UK, the company works together to contribute to their company purpose: “To drive change together, EmployeeIndustryAboutresponsibly.” SarahEavesAutomotives&Techcount1,000employeesacross the UK Case Focus Using a CSR platform to access volunteering activities based on employee location, skills, and preferred Programmecauses.LeadHelen Robinson
“When we initially launched Benevity, we reached out to our People Team to get an understanding of where our colleagues across the business were located. This was important to ensure that all areas in the UK had opportunities for volunteering on the platform. We didn’t want to only have opportunities available in the Greater Manchester or Greater London area, where our offices are, we also wanted to provide opportunities for our remote workers. This helps to get everyone on-board and ensure that they have opportunities for taking their volunteering days.”
The context
Helen Diversity,Robinson Inclusion and Community Engagement Manager at Auto Trader
Helen Robinson, Diversity, Inclusion and Community Engagement Manager and Sarah Eaves, National Account Manager & Co-Leader of the Make a Difference guild at Auto Trader UK, work together to steer the outcomes of their employee-led networks to offer engaging volunteering and giving initiatives. One of their top priorities has been to provide equal opportunities for all employees to use their allowance of volunteering days - included within their CSR policy - to support causes that are close to home. That’s why they partnered up with Benevity to offer localised volunteering activities and engage employees in the company’s environmental and social impact initiatives around the UK.
This is why Helen and Sarah committed to building a programme that is present across the region and even for those who work remotely. This would give employees the opportunity to contribute their time to meaningful, local causes - no matter where they are based.
across the United Kingdom for their employees based in different areas. Provide relevant opportunities for remote workers to feel included in the programme while working from home. Accurately measure the impact of their efforts to improve in the future. “We saw a really great opportunity when we partnered with Benevity because we knew they’d be able to help us make sure that our volunteering opportunities were being shown to everybody no matter where they are in the UK.
TheTheirchallengemainchallengeSourcelocalvolunteeringactivities
With employees spread all across the UK, Auto Trader was set on giving all team members access to volunteering activities - particularly those who were based outside of their major hubs of Manchester and London.
Sarah NationalEaves Account Manager & Co-Leader of the Make a Difference guild at Auto Trader UK
The solution
Empowering employee-led guilds with data Access to new functionalities that encourage higher participation In partnering with Benevity, Auto Trader is able to connect with organisations in their desired regions, ensuring that their dispersed teams can take part in meaningful volunteering opportunities based on their location, preferred causes, and skills. Auto Trader captures the attention of stakeholders and motivates teams to contribute more by measuring personal and company-wide impact through the Benevity platform and sharing their results internally and externally. Helen and Sarah are now able to offer new and engaging ways to contribute to worthy causes through the Benevity platform with the help of user-friendly fundraising pages and habit-building challenges.
A catalogue of localised volunteer activities across the UK
Helen Diversity,Robinson Inclusion and Community Engagement Manager at Auto Trader
"We were initially looking for a third-party platform to help us with our volunteering work. We needed support, and Benevity was perfect for this. But then it just so happened that Benevity could help us do more with our donation pages, which was great for fundraising, and also the team challenges. So we got more from the platform than what we initially wanted, which is great."
"The Benevity platform has really helped us in terms of building fundraising pages. It helps us to see all of the work that our networks are doing for charities. And from a data perspective, we're able to see how much collectively Auto Trader has helped by matching funds as well. It's really good from a data perspective to see the impact that we are having and how we're making a difference. It makes it easy because from a visibility perspective it makes sense to have everything all in one place.”
The results19% of employees volunteering through the Benevity platform in the first year of the programme 50% of employees expected to volunteer through the Benevity platform in the second year
Helen Diversity,Robinson Inclusion and Community Engagement Manager at Auto Trader
Tips & Advice for other companies
To increase participation regionall , employ team leads across the business, or what Auto Trader call their Tribe Leaders, to champion our programme, access localised content on the enevit platform, and more easil share information with individuals
Understand the diverist , locations, habits, and preferences of our organisation b collecting data through our HR s stem and our CSR platform.
Sarah NationalEaves Account Manager & Co-Leader of the Make a Difference guild at Auto Trader UK
Use every mode of communication that ou have available to get the message across to emplo ees that volunteering and giving are a priorit at our compan .
“It's worth calling out that Benevity has been really beneficial to us and we have used it so much more now, particularly because a lot of us are working from home and continue to do so. That alliance is a really good way to keep our Make A Difference strategy at the centre of people's mind. It's given us loads of functionality that we didn't have before.”
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