Should you consider introducing volunteering leave?

Should you consider introducing volunteering leave?

Offering one or more days of volunteering leave per year can be an attractive part of your benefits package for socially conscious employees. Do you have any current obligations and would introducing volunteering be a good move for your business?

Current position

There’s no general statutory right to paid or unpaid volunteering leave of any kind. In 2015, the previous government pledged to introduce a new right to three days’ paid volunteering leave per year for employees who work for large employers with 250+ staff, but this was later dropped.

The current government has not announced any plans to introduce statutory volunteering leave. A coalition of national volunteer-focussed charities wrote to the Prime Minister in March 2025 calling for the introduction of 35 hours of paid statutory volunteering leave per year, but the government has not committed to implementing such a policy.

Tip. You can insist that employees use their paid annual leave entitlement if they wish to take time off to undertake voluntary work. Or you could grant them special unpaid leave.

Trap. Under the Employment Rights Act 1996, employees are entitled to reasonable unpaid time off work to carry out certain designated public duties and this would include an employee volunteering as a Magistrate/Justice of the Peace.

Pros and cons of volunteering leave

Many large employers provide paid time off for volunteering as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes. Whilst it’s not yet common for smaller employers to do so, the pros of offering volunteering leave include that it can: (1) enhance your brand, as it signals a commitment to CSR, which can appeal to clients and new recruits; (2) boost employee engagement and morale; (3) allow employees to develop their soft skills, such as communication, leadership, project management and teamwork; and (4) strengthen your community links if you support local causes, which in turn can be good for networking.

However, in small businesses with tight staffing, time off for volunteering leave can cause operational disruption and it’s a cost to the business which may be difficult to absorb (both in terms of salary if paid and lost productivity). It might also be hard for you to measure the business value of it.

Introducing volunteering leave

If you would like to introduce volunteering leave, you should first consider: (1) how many days per year will be granted and, if more than one, whether these can/must be taken in a block or as a single day; (2) whether it will be paid or unpaid; (3) what types of volunteering are supported, i.e. is time off to be restricted to volunteering with designated local causes that you plan to partner with or can it be used for wider volunteering purposes; (4) any eligibility requirements, such as a length of service criterion; and (5) how time off requests are to be made and approved and any grounds for refusal.

Tip. Put in place a voluntary and charity work policy

Tip. An alternative is to support local causes in ways that don’t require time off, such as by hosting charity events or sponsoring raffle prizes. Or, if you do decide to allow one day off per year, you could provide for this to only be taken an hour or two at a time so as to minimise business disruption.

There’s no legal obligation on you to offer either paid or unpaid volunteering leave and so whether you do so is entirely at your discretion. However, volunteering leave can help to attract and retain staff. Do first weigh up the benefits of it for your business against the operational and cost implications of the additional time off that would be required.