HSS Hire’s Marketing Director, Fiona Perrin, discusses why they often get involved with the third sector.

All too often, it’s easy to forget how nice simply being nice can be. Doing things for the greater good can sometimes get a bit lost in the day to day stuff; it can go by the by when revenue and costs are under the commercial  microscope or when the pressures of deadlines are looming. But it shouldn’t. There’s a lot to be said for sticking with it, for rolling up your sleeves and giving a helping hand in whatever way will make the biggest difference.

At HSS, we’ve always tried to do our bit – we offer all registered charities a big discount on their hire requirements and we help out when and where we can. It’s about showing that, at HSS, hire has a heart as well as a commercial value. And it’s a big heart - we’ve given away more than £125,000 of discounted hire in the last 12 months and we’ve helped a number of good causes including community gardens, youth centres,  hospices and a donkey sanctuary . We even played a part in a dolphin rescue!

But it benefits both ways. It’s not just about giving - we get just as much from our relationships with the third sector as they do from us.

For example, we’ve just started a programme of employee volunteering. Every single HSS’er will have a day out of work helping on a project in their local community. We’ll provide the people and the equipment entirely free of charge. Yes, the project gets a helping hand. But we get a sense of well being, a boost of team morale and a fantastic opportunity to encourage team work amongst our colleagues. And we can’t ignore the fact that it generates some great PR amongst the local community too.

And of course, there’s our work with City Gateway. We think they do a tremendous job and have been delighted to get involved. We helped refurbish their training centres but that was the easy part. We’ve taken a long term approach and we’ve developed training courses for them. We’ve even signed up to offer apprenticeships in some of our London based branches. But again, it’s a win-win situation. Yes, City Gateway get help with their work in the local community. Yes, young people get access to training and career opportunities with a big UK company. But we’re hoping we’ll benefit from some really great additions to our team too – we’re expecting the apprentice scheme to provide us with London based drivers, sales people and hire consultants.

I’m not saying it’s about having a ‘what’s in it for me’ approach to charity – it IS nice just to be nice for the sake of it. But what big businesses should take on board is that whether it’s about that warm fuzzy feeling; whether it’s to generate positive PR; whether it’s to create a potential recruitment pipeline – whatever reason you get involved with the third sector, you’ll be glad you did.