Corporate Social Responsibility is an important issue for Medequip. The company encourages and supports employees to volunteer their services during paid work time, giving back to their local communities, working in close partnership with equipment services contracts across the country.
Over the past twelve months, Medequip people have clocked up more than 1600 volunteering hours, contributing to causes as diverse as helping with the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal and supporting major national fundraising events like the Alzheimer’s Society Trek 24 events through to local events like litter picking.
Woodford Green – Commitment to Co-production
Medequip’s Woodford Green depot is committed to delivering volunteer hours across the Barking, Havering and Redbridge areas. How those hours are made up is largely down to the depot team.
Andrew Andreou, Depot Manager at Woodford Green, explains some of the challenges of sustaining a volunteering programme. “We have discovered that offering up free help and coproduction is harder than it looks!” he said. “We regularly run campaigns where we contact organisation like hospices, primary schools and retirement homes to offer volunteer hours, and rarely get a positive response. Making approaches, finding the time to chase these up, identifying the right person and setting up appointments can all take up a significant amount of time in the working day.”
Despite these challenges, Woodford Green is one of Medequip’s most prolific depots in terms of volunteering hours per member of staff. Perhaps reflecting how difficult times are for people at the moment, two of their key supported charities are focused on providing food to people in need.
Seva Street
Seva Street is a non-profit organisation, with no religious affiliations, serving the homeless in East London. Seva Street provides assistance including hot meals, drinks, clothing and essential toiletries. Every Wednesday, Medequip volunteers attend at a local shopping centre, setting up a stall and serving food to people who really need it.
“It’s become an important part of the week for the depot team too,” explained Woodford Green’s Logistics Manager Yasmeen Mian. “What we do on a day-to-day basis as a business means coproduction is an important part of our ethics, giving back to society. Wednesdays are an important reminder of what real need looks like.”
Foodbanked
Further research into this particular area of need led Yasmeen to open up a dialogue with Foodbanked, a registered charity set up by local volunteers in the Redbridge and Essex areas. Foodbanked partners with charities and suppliers to distribute food and household products to people in need.
Medequip’s volunteering contribution here is essentially practical, with driver technicians collecting and delivering donations every month in support of the programme. This provides the charity not just with volunteers but also the logistics network to get donations to the people who need them.
Medequip depots working together
Liaison between Medequip depots also plays an important role in the volunteering programme. Regional Teams calls are held across regional depots every month, where hours are formally logged. These meetings provide an opportunity for each depot to share and discuss projects they are involved with, to identify where collaboration across depots could help and to use volunteering hours most effectively.
“It’s not about counting the hours – the important thing is that we’re making a genuine commitment to coproduction,” stated Andrew Andreou. “I’m pleased and proud that many of our people across the country go above and beyond, not just tallying up the hours but also using their own time in a continuous effort to make things better for others. It may be a corporate initiative, but it really is all about the people involved.”