How Attesters can give back to their communities with 10% Time

All Attesters can use 10% Time to give back to their communities. Here's what it is, how it works and how Attesters have used their 10% Time.

What is 10% Time

With 10% time, Attesters can take paid leave in addition to your holiday entitlement of up to 10% of your total working time during the year for the purpose of contributing to or participating in charitable work that enhances or improves the lives of those around us.

Who is eligible for it?

All permanent employees of Attest and those who are on fixed-term contracts of 6 months or more globally are eligible to take 10% time.

How does it work?

If you’ve thought of a cause you’d like to use your 10% time for, you can speak with your manager to give as much notice of the leave as possible. You’ll log the leave into our HRIS (Human Resources Information System) as 10% time. This request will be sent through to your manager for their approval, and will be marked in your portal as leave that is separate from your annual leave and other leave allocations.

It’s up to you which cause you choose to support during your 10% time. Some Attesters support causes on their own, and some contribute in a group. For example, a group of Attesters have used their 10% time to work with the Tech Talent Charter. Attest has been a signatory with the Tech Talent Charter since 2019 and in our role as their official research partners we support them with gathering, analysing and publishing reports into diversity and inclusion in the tech sector.

Once you have taken your 10% time, we encourage you to share what you have been doing with the rest of the business to give other Attester’s ideas of how they can volunteer.

Why is 10% Time important to Attest?

Attest’s Founder and CEO Jeremy King said this about 10% time: “10% time has existed from day zero at Attest, from the very beginning. It’s always been part of what we do. People use 10% time for a wonderfully wide range of things. Collectively, we have a huge amount that we can offer and do for charity, community and the world around us, and 10% time is how we help that happen.”

Here’s how some Attesters use their 10% Time

I use this time to help the UK’s most challenged state primary schools (with REAch2), also working to design, test and scale new solutions to society’s biggest problems (with Nesta). We actively encourage everyone at Attest to use 10% time for things we care about, individually and/or collectively.
Jeremy King
CEO
I recently used my 10% time to volunteer for YourGamePlan’s National Interview Week. The programme supports over 5,000 state school students to hone their interview skills. I remember getting very little career advice at school and I never had the chance to do an interview in a safe environment so I felt that this was a real opportunity for me to use the skills I have developed over my career to help give back.
Emily Meiklejohn
Talent Acquisition and Employer Brand Lead
Attest’s 10% time has given me the chance to help out at charities that need extra hands on weekdays – so far I’ve helped to build a new community farm, distributed wasted food to people who need it and helped serve a community Christmas lunch. This is such an amazing benefit and it is amazing to work somewhere that supports personal and professional growth.
Rosie Kinloch
Principal Product Manager
I started to volunteer with ScotsCare recently as a befriender, meeting someone on a regular basis to provide some companionship and support. I truly enjoy meeting them for a cup of tea and a chat, it’s a very rewarding experience and I’m learning so much. I’m very thankful to Attest for giving me 10% of my working hours to spend volunteering, this was definitely a factor when deciding to join ScotsCare.
Isabel Perez
Senior Customer Success Manager
I am a volunteer for Samaritans. Samaritans is an organisation that provides a listening service to anyone who is struggling to cope, their vision being fewer people die by suicide. The 10% time has given me the opportunity to schedule some listening shifts during the working day, which allows me to provide the service at a time when a lot of volunteers are unavailable.
Sam Killip
VP Customer Success

Interested in joining Attest?

Take a look at how we do things at Attest, what’s on offer for Attesters and check our open roles.

Emily Meiklejohn

Talent Acquisition and Employer Brand Lead 

Emily leads Attest's Talent Acquisition and Employer Brand projects, working closely with candidates and Attesters to make sure people love working here.

See all articles by Emily