Benefex helps employees do good through new volunteering benefit

In a first for a benefits provider, Benefex has announced a partnership with the original on-demand employee volunteering solution, onHand.

Named ‘Uber for Volunteering’ by IBM Watson, onHand makes it simple for businesses to engage employees while also giving back to communities. The app matches employees to micro volunteering opportunities of less than one hour, based on their location.

Covering all the causes employees care about, onHand provides on-demand opportunities to help via a network of partners. These include helping the elderly via Age UK, the British Red Cross and the NHS, to working with youth mentoring groups including the Youth Group, sustainability and environmental projects ranging from beach cleans to distributing food waste and supporting homeless shelters.

Gethin Nadin, Director of Employee Wellbeing at Benefex said, “We know employee wellbeing has taken a nose-dive during lockdown. And we know the powerful way that volunteering helps, not just the people and projects that benefit, but also the mental wellbeing of the volunteers themselves. This partnership with onHand is the perfect way for us to help our customers support the communities in which they work; and the mental wellbeing of their people.”

Charlotte Godley, Head of Proposition added, “Benefex and onHand are both on a mission to engage and support employee wellbeing in our new working world and this agreement gives us even more scope to make that happen.”

onHand founder Sanjay Lobo said, "The level of understanding Benefex have across employee wellbeing made them a natural choice for us. We deeply align with their five pillars of employee wellbeing needs, across emotional, physical, financial, leisure and community. Benefex clearly saw the role onHand can play to meet the community wellbeing need for employees and we can't wait to take this offering to their customers."

This announcement comes in 2021’s Month of Community. The referral agreement between the two companies will see employees able to access the onHand app via Benefex’s OneHub platform and select micro-volunteering opportunities. Already Benefex customers like AND Digital and Softcat are taking advantage of the onHand product.