Employee volunteering

Our volunteering programme offers Boots UK employees the chance to participate in a wide range of community activities in working time, sharing their expertise and knowledge with local schools, charities and voluntary organisations.

Examples of some of the initiatives our people are involved in include,

Pharmacy preregistration volunteering programme

Getting involved with the local community is an important part of our pre-registration pharmacists' training in the UK. With this in mind, around 600 of our new trainees work as volunteers primarily in partnership with the Healthy Living Alliance, a charitable organisation, and its member organisations which represent a wide range of initiatives and activities to prevent ill-health in some of the most deprived local communities across the country. During 2008/09, as a result of this partnership, these communities benefited from over 50 healthcare focused events being held in their local areas.

Help the Hospices

Volunteers from Boots UK have worked closely with Help the Hospices, the UK charity supporting hospice care, to develop a ‘Hospice Retail Toolkit’ of information and advice on how to make hospice shops look as good as possible in order to attract customers and increase income for local hospices. Launched in March 2009, the toolkit contains information on a range of issues, from building a good changing room to helping to avoid shop theft. It was compiled using expert advice from across the business to develop a valuable and practical insight into how high street stores organise their stock and retail space. The toolkit is designed to help over 1,200 hospice shops increase the amount of money they raise for hospices across the UK.

Look Good...Feel Better

Our No7 consultants use their time and expertise to support Look Good...Feel Better beauty workshops for women with cancer, an initiative sponsored by the cosmetic industry.

The free sessions take place in hospitals across the UK. Many Boots No7 Consultants regularly volunteer at these sessions, providing morale-boosting makeovers and advice on skin care and make-up. By the end of 2008/09, workshops were taking place in 56 hospitals, with over 100 Boots No7 Consultants volunteering. Boots UK also donated around 17,000 No7 products during 2008/09 to support these workshops.

Suncare consultants

Boots expert suncare consultants are encouraged to get involved in supporting sun safety activity in their local communities. We give them resources to help them to do a great job in sharing their knowledge and expertise on why it is so important to be safe in the sun. Throughout the summer many of our consultants help local schools and playgroups, work with health professionals to educate parents and children, and work with community groups to support events in parks and beaches.

Supporting the community through team challenges

Team Challenges give people the opportunity to spend a day in the local community sharing their skills with schools, charities and community groups. Challenges have included transforming overgrown garden space at a hospice and repainting a tired room for a family support charity. During 2008/09, over 250 support office colleagues took part in team challenges.

Supporting local schools with literacy

Many of our support office colleagues volunteer in local schools to help children with their reading. By the end of 2008/09, 75 Boots UK colleagues were spending time each week in classrooms in a number of Nottingham schools hearing children read.