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If your boss offered you a paid day off to volunteer for a cause you care about, would you take it?

You may think you would, but that’s probably not the case.

According to the consulting firm WTW, almost half of all employers in the US offer or plan to offer volunteer leave, which allows employees to work for a good cause a few days a year during company working hours. In the UK, 70 percent do this. But only about 15 percent of employees take advantage of their volunteer leave, says William Fleming, a research fellow at the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford.

What if the first step was as painless as choosing a movie to stream? That’s the goal of OnHand, a UK tech company that wants to become “the Netflix” of volunteering. Companies pay for their employees’ access to the app, which allows them to search for and get involved in volunteer opportunities at local charities. These range from picking up a prescription for a housebound neighbor to mentoring a jobseeker to “micro-actions” like donating cans to a supermarket’s food collection.

OnHand is one of several volunteer platforms that are booming as companies seek to bring meaning to hybrid workplaces and demonstrate their social impact to governments and ESG investors. But the simplicity of such initiatives can be problematic: while companies often look for fun and frictionless opportunities for their employees, this doesn’t always meet the needs of charities.

“The biggest hurdle for most people is time, so how can we enable them to do good without having to take time out of their day?” asks Sanjay Lobo, founder and CEO of OnHand. Allowing employees to volunteer “on their own” increases usage: Within three months of an employer joining, 50 percent of employees use the app, and nine out of 10 do so again.

While corporate volunteering has previously been “quite a heavy lift for employers,” platforms are easing that burden by finding and vetting charities, logging hours and quantifying social value, says Steve Butterworth, CEO of Neighbourly. And while activities can be small, any nudge to action “needs to be positive.” Taking part in a local litter pick, for example, could be “the entry point” for someone who might then volunteer again, says Matt Hyde, co-founder of Big Help Out, an initiative to encourage volunteering.

Supporting volunteer work is “an attractive retention and recruitment tool” that millennials have come to expect, says Regan Gross, a consultant at the U.S. industry association Society for Human Resource Management. Studies show that volunteers’ morale improves, they feel more comfortable with their employer and they learn skills, which increases their engagement and productivity.

Holly Firmin, senior community and partnerships manager at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners in the UK, says both employers and charities benefit. For example, actions taken by the drinks maker’s employees include working with local conservation groups to “find ways to replenish water usage at our manufacturing sites.” Neighbourly allows “our employees to connect with hyper-local small charities… where we can directly make a difference,” she adds.

Whether this actually makes a difference depends on whether the employer’s objectives are aligned with the charity’s needs, and that cannot be taken for granted.

For charities, taking on volunteers can be a burden, consuming time, money and effort from often already overstretched permanent staff. Rather than getting offers to paint fences, charities want someone to “do their audit or do their payroll for free,” says Emily Cherry, CEO of the Bikeability Trust, a cycling charity. But what volunteers have in mind is often “something different to their day job,” says Butterworth.

Technology that matches people’s professional skills with the needs of aid agencies can help. Neighbourly is launching DigitalBridge, a campaign that connects volunteers from companies like Virgin Media O2 with aid agencies that crave expertise but lack access to it.

Collaborations done well provide an “edge of opportunity,” says Richard Lupton, fundraiser for the Alexandra Rose Charity, which provides families with access to healthy food. Using a Teams connection from his UK office to Portugal, Lupton gets tips from marketers at food giant Sodexo, and is able to quadruple clicks on the charity’s fundraising campaigns.

For Eduarda Almeida of Sodexo, the monthly meetings are an opportunity to exchange ideas on advertising strategy, “contribute to my professional development” and do something good at the same time.

“When I heard about the charity’s work, I was touched,” she says.