Overview

‘On Your Way Home’ (OYWH) is a scheme that companies can opt into to promote and manage micro volunteering by the employees in their organisation. The volunteer’s time is structured around the working day and and is given to local elderly members of the community.

Finding the time to volunteer can be a challenge and so OYWH aims to fit the time around and employees daily routine. Perhaps you have time to spare on your way to work in the morning, or if the evening is better why not donate some of your time On Your Way Home?

How it Works

To help explain the On Your Way Home scheme, here’s a typical scenario for a new company joining up.

It maybe part of a Corporate Social Responsibility commitment, perhaps just an opportunity for colleagues to come together in the workplace, the scheme is specifically aimed at larger organisations who can commit to a minimum number of employees and an amount of time from each.

———————

With the support of the OYWH facilitators each company designs it’s own programme of events. This helps to tailor the activities to the local community and to the companies skills and knowledge.

———————

The programme of events is then publicised in the company, employees can commit to as much or little time as they can.

———————

Initial visits are supported by an OYWH facilitator. This helps set ground rules and ensures that both volunteer and beneficiary are comfortable with the meeting.

———————

The employee finishes their programme of events.

———————

Each participant is awarded points, the most active members of the community are recognised in the company.

Original Concept Description

Bupa, and other employers, could collect a database of where their employees live and their various possible routes home. A system could then be set up with local councils or community groups or where elderly or isolated individuals could register, to receive brief home visits.

Employees would sign up to do something good on their way home. Ideally this would break up their evening commute, meaning they could walk to the house of the person they are visiting, thus improving their own physical health and the wellbeing of the isolated individual.

This is a spin on GoodGym – a wonderful organisation that already exists for those who wish to get fit by doing good, but it would be made available to all staff our a regular basis as part of the daily ritual of commuting.

 

What are the benefits of your concept for the individual and the employer?

This could be a fantastic opportunity for people to ‘give back to the community’ during their daily ritual of commuting and would probably help them to unwind after a long days work. The employer would benefit from the positivity of their employees actions.

 

What might the impact of your concept be and how might it be measured?

This is a chance for employees to reach out to the community beyond the workforce.

 

How might your concept be designed to scale and spread to reach as many people as possible?

From the outset, the concept is designed to reach out very broadly.

 

How might you design a small experiment around your concept that would mobilise action?

This idea could be tested with a few willing individuals straight away.

 

About this site

On Your Way Home is a concept originally submitted to the OpenIDEO platform as part of the Wellness workplace challenge. You can find out more about OpenIDEO and the challenge here.

This site was set up as an archive of the content and discussions from the OpenIDEO site, as this idea has grown and taken on feedback i’ve decided that a separate website might be useful to gather more specific feedback. It can also serve as a place to archive the earlier versions of the project description.