An engaged corporate sector – image or substance?

With big companies under increasing pressure to demonstrate their corporate social responsibility (CSR) credentials, corporate volunteering - or "employee community engagement" - appears to be on the rise.

While employee volunteering seems to have become particularly prominent in the UK, Markus Held of the European Volunteer Centre warns against generalising about differences between European countries and points to growing interest globally in volunteering on the part of corporates and the voluntary sector.

Confident job-seekers may be increasingly interested in firms’ CSR portfolio when targeting potential employers. Joanna Goyder, who has worked for the Brussels office of law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer for six years, says that if a company was offering possible time off for community engagement, although that would not be the deciding factor in choosing between potential employers, "it all goes into the pot" when it comes to making a comparison.

Everyone at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has the opportunity to spend at least one day of working time per year on volunteering in the community. Goyder brushes aside any suggestion that employees might be subject to peer pressure to volunteer for career reasons - not everybody volunteers and it is very much an individual choice, she explains.

The international ENGAGE campaign set up in 2002 sees various companies and partner organisations come together to foster community engagement schemes. It has recently been focusing its efforts on European locations such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Madrid, including, for example, training for disadvantaged students.

Francesco Vanni d’Archirafi, chairman of Citibank Europe and co-chair of ENGAGE, says there is both a moral and a business case for giving back to communities. He suggests that there is a growing need for private enterprise to address social problems in Europe as the budget-constrained state retreats from social safety nets. "I think the private sector will have to take some of the space," he says.

Yet critics say not enough is being done at EU-level to support corporate volunteering. It did not get a specific mention in the European Commission’s 2006 communication on CSR, even though for many companies volunteering can be a first step into the broader realm of CSR. Cynics may also note that the Commission does not have its own ‘corporate volunteering’ scheme - although officials can of course pursue activities on an individual basis.

UK Labour MEP Richard Howitt - who describes ENGAGE as an "absolutely brilliant project" - is drafting a response to the Commission’s text on CSR, which the European Parliament is expected to vote on early in 2007. He says that employee community engagement will certainly be part of the report and that he will argue that European pilot projects are needed to support it.

As for the cynics’ suspicions that CSR is more image than substance, Howitt admits that there are companies that just use CSR for public relations purposes, but "any company that systematically provides volunteering…is clearly making a real effort".

• For more information see www.engage-online.org

With big companies under increasing pressure to demonstrate their corporate social responsibility (CSR) credentials, corporate volunteering - or "employee community engagement" - appears to be on the rise.