Volunteer in 2020 to support your career
If you’re looking to learn new skills in 2020, did you know that volunteering can help you to develop key skills and behaviours that will help you in the workplace?
Professional volunteering is a great way to grow skills in coaching and mentoring, confidence, communication, team building, self-awareness and creativity (CIPD, 2014). It can be a short-term, one-off activity such as delivering a talk in a school, or a regular, longer-term activity that fits around your working life, such as supporting a school develop an impactful careers curriculum that gives students an inside look at the world of work.
Neena Speding is a HR professional and enterprise adviser, volunteering with a school. As well as positively contributing to her local community, she’s experienced benefits to her own professional and personal development. You can read about Speding’s experience of volunteering with a school and what she’s gained.
Enterprise advisers like Speding, work within schools to support students and raise their awareness of the range of career options open to them, as well as introducing students to local employers. Advisers are now estimated to have supported around 500,000 students across the UK.
On top of this, half of employers with an employee volunteering as an enterprise adviser cited they are making changes to better support young people to enter the labour market, and 36% cited the adviser as a catalyst for these changes. You could be apart of this community leading the change in creating a better workplace.
Interested in becoming an Enterprise Adviser?
Enterprise advisers volunteer directly with a local school or college’s senior leadership team to develop their careers programme for their students. Over 2,500 schools have already joined the network and the support of volunteers has ensured that more and more students are having meaningful encounters with employers whilst at school.
The CIPD is looking for senior level professionals to join the network across England. This is a great opportunity for people professionals to develop their strategic skills in a new setting, build networks and combine a passion for raising aspirations with professional expertise and knowledge about the world of work.
92% of enterprise advisers have developed skills and competencies including; community awareness, networking and communication through volunteering (Careers and Enterprise Company, 2019).
It is also a fantastic opportunity to learn about your local labour market whilst connecting with future talent in your area and inspiring them to think about their future studies and career.
To register interest in the programme, please complete this short registration form: http://www.cipdenterpriseadvisers.co.uk/
You can find out more about volunteering on the CIPD website: https://www.cipd.co.uk/learn/volunteer/develop-senior-experience/become-enterprise-adviser
The CIPD works in partnership with the Careers and Enterprise Company who run the national Enterprise Adviser programme.
Sources:
CIPD 2014: https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/volunteering-to-learn_tcm18-9086.pdf
CEC 2019: https://www.careersandenterprise.co.uk/sites/default/files/uploaded/1195_ea_survey_digital.pdf
