Employer Spotlight: Lucy Pagliaro, Benenden Health
Welcome to May’s Employer Spotlight Feature! This feature is designed to give an insight into one of our members, to find out a bit more about what they do, and to give an insight into why employee-volunteering is important within their organisation.
This month’s feature is written by Lucy Pagliaro, Engagement & Wellbeing Co-ordinator, Benenden Health, who is also the York Cares Ambassador for the organisation and the Chair of our Operations Board.
We are incredibly grateful to Benenden Health for their long term support since York Cares launched all the way back in 2005.
Thank you very much to Lucy for taking the time to write this feature, and for sharing your experience of York Cares membership. Here’s to many more years of working together!
Lucy writes, “Benenden Health is a York based organisation, with our office based on Holgate Park Drive in York. We are an affordable private healthcare provider, that believe that private healthcare should be accessible for everyone. We strive to be an employer of choice, with our colleagues also thinking the same! Within our offering of wellbeing and engagement activities, volunteering is extremely popular with our colleagues, and we actively promote and encourage colleagues to take up the York Cares opportunities and make an impact within our local community.
Volunteering is important to Benenden Health, as it supports our colleague’s wellbeing by getting out and about, by supporting local projects and causes, and our colleagues enjoy seeing the impact of what they have achieved aside from their day-to-day jobs. Actively encouraging volunteering demonstrates that we are an employer that cares about our colleague’s wellbeing, as well as giving back to our local community. Volunteering also gives our colleagues the opportunity to spend time out of work as a team, or mixing with others, and gives time for those quality social interactions that may not be prioritised when you’re darting between meetings – and so many things are virtual these days!
We have been a member of York Cares since York Cares was founded in 2005 and throughout that time we have accessed a variety of different opportunities through being members. Whether that’s taking part in York Cares Big Community Challenge or helping children with their reading skills through Right to Read, or hosting a Project Dare to encourage secondary school children to think about their careers and futures within work. The membership allows us to access a breadth of opportunities where different skillsets across the organisation can be utilised, there is always something for everyone. We have also won awards over the years for our volunteering, that is great recognition for our colleagues and promotes the value that they bring by volunteering in our community.
To any business or organisation in York that is thinking about becoming a York Cares member, I would say, join! The team are a friendly bunch, who will happily chat to you around the benefits that becoming a member of York Cares could bring. It’s a fantastic way to feel connected to your local community and promote to your employees that your organisation cares about their wellbeing and participation in volunteering. You also get to meet other likeminded employers at their stakeholder meetings and awards, that share the same ambitions and objectives as you, and you become part of a community that comes together to make a difference to so many different people’s lives. Whether that be the working lives of your employees, or those who you are impacting through the volunteering you do. There isn’t really a reason not to join in my opinion!”
If you’d like to feature your organisation as a future Employer Spotlight feature, we’d love to hear from you. Contact Georgia via info@yorkcares.co.uk for more information.
It’s our members who make the difference within the city, the more organisations we have involved, the bigger the difference that can be made. For more information about York Cares membership and how to get involved, please contact Holly via info@yorkcares.co.uk.
