How do you restructure a traditional Volunteer programme into a short-term and flexible one? Try these strategies:
Substitution – If the job has to be done every day, week or month, create the position of “substitute.” These are volunteers who are willing to be on-call and fill-in as their schedules permit.
Job Sharing - Assign two volunteers to the same opportunity. Their responsibilities could be the same or different depending on their skills. Two volunteers might job share or the new volunteer could recruit a job-sharing friend. The volunteers follow a prearranged schedule or work it out themselves week by week.
Rotation - Several volunteers might take turns filling a volunteer assignment, each working for a period of just three months. Such an arrangement might work well for seasonal workers or students.
Segmentation – Breaking a labor intensive position into manageable short-term opportunities. For example, a special event coordinator might be replaced by several short-term volunteers each working on one piece of the overall event.
Team Volunteering - Assign multiple volunteers to the same client, each having a specialized function. For example, instead of just one volunteer being assigned to a homebound senior, a team is created. Perhaps one volunteer gives emotional support, another handles finances and another does housecleaning. No one volunteer has to do it all making the load lighter for everyone.
Telecommuting - The volunteer provides the service from home or some other off-site location using the Internet, phones or fax. A good example of the application of this strategy is in the area of mentoring. School-based mentoring can be a fairly inflexible assignment. However, volunteers who can not come into the school on a regular basis can still participate through e-mentoring, the exchange of emails over the Internet. Whether the volunteer is at work, overseas on vacation or at home, all they need to do is to get on their laptop and send off an email to their mentee. E-mentoring is not a replacement for face-to-face mentoring, but it can be a way to involve a greater range of volunteers in the experience.
When paid staff leave your organisation and you are employing new people this could be an ideal opportunity to look at changing their job description. Could your new paid worker do some of the long-term work that used to be done by volunteers and you get volunteers to do short-term work that may have been done by the previous paid worker.
What changes have you made to your Volunteer Programme in the past couple of years? What brought those changes on? Would any of the above suggestions suit your organisation?
Cindy
Posted by cindycarmichael
Posted by cindycarmichael
Posted by cindycarmichael