UPS staff donated 1.8m volunteer hours in 2012

UPS employees donated a record 1.8 million volunteer hours in 2012.

According to the global logistics organisation’s Corporate sustainability report 2012, which was published in July, employee volunteers logged 309,520 hours in October 2012 during Global Volunteer Month, which took the year’s total number of volunteer hours to a new record of 1.8 million, up from 1.6 million hours in 2011.

The total for 2012 includes hours spend volunteering in 50 countries around the world.

More than 1,400 UPS employees also volunteered to become Sustainability Ambassadors in 2012 within the organisation and in their communities.

UPS also offers staff the opportunity to take part in its Neighbour to Neighbour programme, which allows employees and their families to serve as volunteers in their community.

The programme is administered through each area’s Neighbour to Neighbour coordinator, a UPS employee whose responsibilities include helping staff find appropriate volunteering opportunities based on their skills, interests and time availability.

A spokesperson for UPS said: “Volunteerism is core to UPS. According to internal research, our employees give an average of 80 hours a year of their time to volunteer.

“We don’t have an inventive programme for this. It’s the straight generosity of our people who believe that giving back is the right thing to do. Each year, we dedicate the month of October as Global Volunteer Month, asking our employees to get out into their communities and give the gift of their time and skills.”