Sodexo employees are entitled to take up to three days per year to volunteer

Sodexo employees are entitled to up to three days’ paid leave a year, to take part in volunteering activities.  It’s official company policy but not that many people seem to be aware of it so we’ve given it that extra push!

Here’s the policy in a nutshell. Sodexo employees can take:

> One to three days a year volunteering with charities that align with the Stop Hunger ethos, to tackle hunger and malnutrition.

> One day a year volunteering with a charity of their choice.

> The maximum number of paid days is three – so employees could opt to volunteer two days for a hunger charity and one further day for a charity of their choice, for example.

Why do we encourage volunteering?

Volunteering not only gives you a feel good factor, it offers a personal and professional development opportunity, supports team building and can have positive impact on physical and mental health and work-life balance.

How do employees go about it?

Once they’ve decided what sort of volunteering activity they’d like to do, they just need to get their line managers approval and fill out a short application form.

Since re-launching the policy, we’ve had some great stories of what people have got up to such as a group of our prison officers from HMP Addiewell volunteering with FareShare, sorting surplus food at the Central and South Scotland depot.