1Team Giving Back — OnHand corporate volunteering app

How we’re using the OnHand app to give back to our communities via corporate volunteering.

Building connections and caring about our communities are both key to our culture at Synergy Learning. We use OnHand to create a focal point for our efforts collectively and individually to support causes and groups that are important to us.

What is OnHand?

OnHand is a corporate volunteering and sustainability tool that creates opportunities for 1Team members to get behind good causes. Using some of the gamification elements that we often use in the learning management systems we build, OnHand encourages us to compete with each other to top our leaderboard and compete collectively to secure points that will be rewarded by trees being planted.

What we’re achieving with OnHand

At the time of writing, 1Team has achieved:

• 351 hours volunteered
• 242 good deeds completed
• 400.33 CO2e reduction (kg)
• 520 trees planted 

We’ve supported a variety of causes and groups including:

• Local food banks
• The Trussell Trust 
• RAF Air Cadets
• Crisis 
• Local schools

We’re also earning points by being more mindful of sustainability and our environmental impact by:

• Reducing plastics
• Washing laundry at lower temperatures
• Using more sustainable produce

How are we giving back?

“Giving back is not just about Synergy Learning donating from its profits as a company,” says our people person Jenny Hodgen. “It’s about all of us engaging with purpose to support our local community, an international charity or the environment.” 

For our QA Analyst Mike Hoole, OnHand has been a way to combine volunteering work with local youth organisations with taking small steps to become more sustainable.

“The majority of my OnHand points come from volunteering with the RAF Air Cadets, where I provide aviation-related and personal skills development for 12-20-year-olds two evenings a week,” explains Mike. “This gives young people in my local area life skills such as confidence, leadership, discipline, motivation and a sense of citizenship that benefits our community and their future prospects.”

Mike tops up his points and ensures we can plant more trees by tracking sustainable lifestyle decisions he makes.

He continued: “There are a lot of very simple actions that can be taken to earn points. These include only putting enough water in the kettle for the drinks you’re actually making, using a bag for life when shopping and setting up a bird feeder in your garden.”

Implementation consultation Rebecca Henson has also been volunteering in her community by serving as the PTA treasurer at her son’s school. She is also drawing on a cause very close to her heart by volunteering with charity The Compassionate Friends to support other bereaved siblings as they come to terms with the loss of a brother or sister.

“It’s group sessions that bring people together to talk about their experiences, use those experiences to help others who find themselves in a similar situation, and really bond over those shared experiences,” says Rebecca.

She has plans to up her volunteering efforts even further by organising a retreat for bereaved siblings.

Rebecca added: “To see the impact you’re having on individuals, communities and the environment makes using OnHand really worthwhile.”

See other ways we’re giving back

Learn more about 1Team initiatives and how we’re giving back to our communities on our Careers page.

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