Involving volunteers only to get work done or to save money are
ideas that have long ago jumped
the shark. The modern volunteer manager involves
volunteers for much better reasons:
- Involving volunteers gives people without a financial
interest in the organization a firsthand look at how things
work. Involving volunteers -- representatives of the
community -- helps educate the community about what the
organization does.
- Community engagement is community ownership. Volunteer
involvement demonstrates that the community is invested in
the organization and its goals.
- Volunteer involvement can help to reach
constituencies/demographics not represented among staff,
board leadership or clients.
- Volunteers may be the most appropriate people for certain
tasks, rather than paid staff; your clients may prefer to be
counseled by volunteers with certain backgrounds rather than
paid employees, for instance.
- Volunteer involvement may create other support for an
organization: volunteers may become financial donors, they
may speak at local government meetings or write letters to
the editor of your local newspaper on your organization's
behalf, or they may tell their friends and colleagues about
your organization in conversations or via their blogs and
online status updates.
The reality is that the modern organization involves
volunteers because the organization is trying to build relationships,
not just to get work done.
When an organization involves volunteers in
high-responsibility, long-term roles, volunteer turnover can
be a program killer. It's vital that organizations continually
look for ways to ensure that volunteers are well-supported,
that volunteers feel their concerns are heard and addressed
promptly, that volunteers feel respected and valued, etc., but
screening is also vital to help screen in the right people
for high-responsibility, long-term volunteer roles,
particularly those where the volunteer will work with clients
and the general public, and to screen out people who may be
better in shorter-term assignments or assignments where they
would not work with clients or the general public, or who
would not be appropriate in any role at the organization.
While volunteer
managers are much more than HR managers, there are
resources from the HR management world that can be helpful in
the new paradigm of volunteer involvement / community
engagement. For instance, this article from workforce.com on screening
and hiring employees with an eye to their attitude can
help volunteer managers seeking to create a screening
process that will keep turnover low for high-responsibility,
long-term volunteer roles.
(note that you will have to register to read articles on workforce.com, but
registration is free)
The article
notes that the idea of hiring for attitude has been
made famous by such companies as Southwest Airlines and
Nordstrom. One CEO of a real estate services
company in New Jersey, which traditionally has a high-turnover
rate, used various books about this model to develop his own
test to measure five qualities among potential candidates.
Such an assessment tool could easily be adapted at
nonprofit organizations looking to reduce turnover and
create a particular type of culture among long-term,
high-commitment volunteers.
The recruiter or hiring manager administers the test
verbally, face-to-face or by phone. One of the qualities
sought is demonstrated integrity, measured through a
series of questions about ethical behavior. Another quality
sought is passion, which candidates can demonstrate
through a hobby or a personal project where the candidate
succeeded (not just through a paid or volunteer role).
The third quality test—longevity—determines whether
the candidate is looking for a job or a career. Adapted for a
volunteer model, the goal could be to see if the volunteer is
looking for a long-term relationship with an organization or
cause through volunteering.
The fourth step measures positive attitude and
asks candidates to describe a positive customer service
experience. It also asks how the candidate’s friends would
describe the candidate’s personal characteristics. The final
element of the test measures the candidate’s knowledge of
tasks that are relevant to the job and the company’s
mission and role.
What could the assessment questions actually look like that
test for these qualities? Some very general ideas:
- Why do you want to volunteer with us?
- What do you hope to accomplish or gain through
volunteering?
- Why do you think our organization involves volunteers?
- Tell me about a time when you have felt passionate or
excitement about a project; this can be at work, through
volunteering, or just through a hobby -- skate boarding,
singing, helping a family member, whatever.
- What is your greatest personal or professional
accomplishment?
- What makes you excited or motivated to get a task done?
- How can you tell when a supervisor is satisfied with your
work?
- How can you tell when a customer or client is satisfied?
- Tell me a time when you went above and beyond for a
customer, a client, a co-worker, or someone else, to make
sure they got what they needed or were satisfied with an
experience?
- How would you define "great team work"?
- Tell me about an experience in which you demonstrated
commitment.
- Tell me about an experience in which you demonstrated
resilience.
- What would you do if you saw a good friend and fellow
volunteer doing something inappropriate at the organization?
- Tell me about a time when you have had to deal with a
difficult personality (for instance, an angry customer), and
how you addressed the situation.
- Tell me an example in which you successfully persuade
someone to do something.
- What would your friends or co-workers say about how you
work under pressure (having to get something done sooner
than expected, or to get something done that's come up
unexpectantly and, therefore, you hadn't planned for, etc.)
- How do you define diversity?
- Tell me about a time when you have worked with people who
are different from you, in terms of age, economic
background, ethnicity, etc. (what you liked about the
experience, what might have made you uncomfortable, what you
learned from such an experience, etc.).
- Tell me about a time when you had a negative impression of
someone, but later, it changed to a positive impression, and
why that change happened.
- How comfortable are you with name of an activity that
a volunteer would undertake (such as asking friends
and associates for donations, dealing with angry people,
etc.)
As creating an accommodating,
welcoming and diverse volunteering program is also a
vital role for the volunteer manager, I do
not recommend this entire test be used for all
volunteer role screening. You do not want to create
an assessment that excludes people:
- who have a different work style than the rest of your
organization but that would be, nonetheless, quite capable
of volunteering and working with others
- who don't have an excellent command of English (if such
isn't required for all volunteer roles)
- who don't interview well (if such a characteristic isn't
required for all volunteer roles)
- who are shy
- who don't verbalize their feelings well
- who aren't ready yet to make a long-term commitment but
may be ready to do so in the future
- who could use certain volunteering activities to build
their professional and personal skills such that they could
take on higher-responsibility roles later
- etc.
Different volunteer roles require different screening.
Yet another reason why volunteer
managers aren't exactly the same as HR managers...
One last caution: the page you are reading now doesn't talk
about screening for safety, to ensure volunteers are appropriate
to be around children; this
is covered at length in the resources noted on this blog.
In addition to screening for safety, you also need to employ
screening techniques to better ensure that applicants don't have
a motivation to volunteer that, while it might be legal, would
not be appropriate. For instant, an applicant may have a
motivation to volunteer primarily to attract customers for his
or her multi-level marketing business, or may be volunteering
primarily to recruit people for his or her church, temple or
other community of faith. One of your methods to screen out
these people is to review your written policies and procedures
with all applicants, and after particularly important sections,
such as those detailing prohibitions regarding sexual
harassment,
proselytizing, etc., and your guidelines on sales pitches
and solicitations by volunteers to other staff, you ask
applicants, "Would you have any issues adhering to this
particular policy?" Some may be upfront about disagreeing with
certain policies, others may not express disagreement - but you
might not see them again.
Also see:
- volunteer
managers: you are NOT psychic!
A manager of volunteers should NEVER let his or her gut be
the guide to decision-making! Thank it for its input, but
look at the facts. Your gut may, in fact, be encouraging a
prejudice you didn't know you had - or encourage you to
overlook a warning sign about a volunteer.
- The Information
About & For Volunteers You Should Have on Your Web
Site
If your organization or department involves volunteers, or
wants to, there are certain things your organization or
department must have on its web site - not by law,
of course, but from a point of view of ethics and
credibility. To not have this basic information about
volunteer engagement on your web site says that your
organization or department takes volunteers for granted,
does not value volunteers beyond money saved in salaries, or
is not really ready to involve volunteers.
- Diagnosing
the causes of volunteer recruitment problems
Before you hire a consultant, even
me, to see what the problem is regarding why you don’t
have enough volunteers, or the kinds of volunteers you want
most, you might be able to diagnosis the problem yourself -
this blog is meant to help you do that. The only catch is
that you MUST be honest as you answer the questions listed
here. Also, answering these questions is rarely a one-person
exercise; you may think you know the answer, but you need to
ask other staff members, including volunteers themselves,
what their answers are to these assessment questions. This
is one of the most popular blogs I've ever written.
- Letting
Fear Prevent Volunteer Involvement is Too Risky
About how choosing NOT to involve volunteers is often, in
fact, a greater risk than choosing to involve
volunteers. To say, "We can't involve volunteers - it's too
risky!" puts your organization at a profound disadvantage.
This is a blog I wrote for Susan Ellis and Energize, Inc. -
you leave my web site if you click on that link.
- Recruiting Volunteers: A
Step-by-Step Guide to QUICKLY Getting the Volunteers You
Want
These are simple, immediate things you can do to get
volunteers.
- Recruiting Mentors
(or any high-responsibility volunteers that will work with
clients)
Recruitment is a mentality. Successful recruitment of
volunteer mentors comes from a mentality that permeates the
organization, one that prompts employees and volunteers to
always be looking for opportunities for outreach and
partnership, and where all employees and volunteers are
advocates for the program, regardless of the tasks they
undertake. This web page has specific recommendations to
recruit mentors for youth, but these recommendations could
be used for most any high-responsibility, high-commitment
volunteer role working with clients, such as counselors or
tutors.
- Recruiting Local
Volunteers To Increase Diversity Among the Ranks
Having plenty of volunteers to undertake all the roles at
your organization usually isn't enough to say a volunteering
program is successful. Another indicator of success is if
your volunteers represent a variety of ages,
education-levels, economic levels and other demographics, or
are a reflection of your local community. Most organizations
don't want volunteers to be a homogeneous group; they want
to reach a variety of people as volunteers (and donors and
other supporters, for that matter). This resource will help
you think about how to recruit for diversity, or to reach a
specific demographic.
- Research
and case studies regarding recruitment and retainment
of volunteer firefighters & justifications for
involving volunteer firefighters that do NOT relate to
"money saved"
A little bit of commentary and a long list of resources,
compiled from various sources. Updates welcomed!
- Virtual Volunteering Myths
Common misconceptions about virtual volunteering versus the
reality of the practice.
- Research on online
volunteering
All of the academic research and journal articles about
online volunteering and online community engagement.
- Online culture
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