This week marks Volunteers’ Week, a chance to recognise the amazing contribution that volunteers make to local communities. Read more about what Martin Smith, NATS Safety Assurance Consultant, had to say about his experience of volunteering for the Jon Egging Trust (JET).

This week marks Volunteers’ Week, a chance to recognise the amazing contribution that volunteers make to local communities. Read more about what Brian Wheeler, Deputy General Manager, had to say about his experience volunteering for Aerobility.

Emotional resilience is an important trait in any workplace as it allows individuals to adapt to stressful situations, not least for air traffic controllers who work in a high-pressure environment every day. Dr Emma Egging of the Jon Egging Trust tells us more about what she learnt about developing emotional resilience from speaking to Katie Fisher, a Chartered Occupational Psychologist in the NATS Human Performance team, and Marie Chandler, Director of Quality, Health, Safety and Wellbeing at NATS.

As the number of flights across the UK has dropped dramatically, many NATS employees have been put on extended periods of furlough. During this time, many have been volunteering, serving and supporting their communities in a variety of ways…

As an air traffic controller, I usually manage aircraft in a very busy sector of airspace. However, as millions of people across the world are put on lockdown, the number of flights across the UK has dropped dramatically and I’ve been put on furlough. It’s unusual to have time off like this and I wanted to try and fill it doing something meaningful. A friend told me about a community group looking for volunteers to make urgently needed personal protective clothing for the NHS and care homes, so I got stuck in.

At NATS we strive to be environmentally efficient in our operational and corporate work and support the community through charity and voluntary work.

NATS has been working with Aerobility – a flying based charity – on a number of projects over the last couple of years. We were delighted when Mike Miller-Smith, CEO, agreed to write a guest post about Aerobility and highlight the forthcoming Aviator’s Ball.