During Volunteers’ Week 2022 Alison Macklin, Plunkett’s Community Business Manager, celebrates the importance of volunteers and ways to truly appreciate their support.

For fifteen years I managed a community shop and café and the most demanding but rewarding part of the job was working with the volunteers. Our volunteers ranged from those in their teens doing their Duke of Edinburgh to those in their eighties.

At the moment community businesses and many voluntary organisations are experiencing a mix of volunteer burnout and a shortage of volunteers as those who took a step back over the last couple of years may not have returned to volunteering and those who stepped in during crisis now have many other calls on their time.

So, why do people volunteer?

There are many benefits to volunteering, keeping body and mind active, opportunity to meet and make new friends, give something back to the community or to a cause they feel strongly about, keep up to date with all the latest news and views in your area, feel part of a team, to gain confidence and learn new skills. It’s important to find out why they are volunteering and so you can try to ensure that they get value out of contributing their time and energy.

There are several myths regarding working with volunteers:

  • Volunteers are free
  • Anyone can manage volunteers
  • You don’t need much time to manage volunteers
  • You don’t need staff to manage volunteers (aka volunteers manage themselves, volunteers will just show up)
  • Volunteer management is a luxury we can’t afford

The inverse is actually true, because volunteers don’t need to be there they have to want to, they need support and each needs to be treated as an individual with different strengths and weaknesses and skill levels.

Many volunteers have lots of other commitments. In the community shop I ran it was particularly grandchildren and gardening and so they have to want to volunteer and feel valued if they are to work at unpopular times such as Saturday afternoons, when the weather is bad or holiday periods. You must never lose site of the fact that they are working often very hard with no tangible benefits and the relationship is a careful balance to ensure that both sides benefit.

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Top tips for attracting, motivating and keeping your volunteers

Training a structured training programme will ensure that you feel comfortable with what the volunteer is capable of and will ensure that important knowledge is imparted in a clear way and a measurable way which is vital should a problem occur. Having a skills analysis based on training will also let you see where gaps may arise.

See them as individuals as each volunteer is different, they volunteer for different reasons and they want different things out of it. You need to challenge them if they want to be challenged, give them responsibilities if they want responsibilities and take into account external factors such as health.

Break down tasks into manageable chunks don’t overwhelm them particularly when they are new, encourage with small simple tasks.  Suggest they come in for a shorter period of time, don’t try to overload with facts – remember for most of us one hour of concentration is enough. This is also useful when recruiting it is easier to find someone to come in to clean a shelf once a month than it is to fill a shift but once they are involved you can ask more of them.

Ensure it is enjoyable volunteers need to enjoy it, make sure they meet plenty of other volunteers, try and match them with a mentor they have something in common with and encourage them to join in the social side of volunteering. If it is nothing but a duty then they will stop coming.

Keep them informed volunteers often have a vested interest particularly if it effects their community or a cause that is close to their heart, make sure they are kept informed of management decisions and the reasons behind them. Ensure that they know the aims and objectives of the project and plans for change, and offer them a chance to contribute.

Reward them you might not be able to do this financially but say thank you, offer teambuilding events and volunteers socials such as a Christmas meal, quiz night, a special discount etc.

Listen to them a voluntary business needs to listen to good ideas, bad ideas, impossible ideas and if possible try to incorporate their feedback and if it is not appropriate explain why, the more the volunteer feel listened to the most dedicated and involved they become. It might be something as simple as where to store the toilet rolls, but small things can cause niggles and a feeling of they don’t care will become unmotivated and may decide to leave.

Communicate this is the vital part to keeping your volunteers, make sure you communicate with them using a variety of methods, some people are very tech savvy others prefer face to face. A regular newsletter is a useful method of imparting facts but a regular meeting will give them a chance to feedback to you, ideas, suggestions and improvements, one to one chats checking if they have any issues.

Provide structured support and procedures uncertainty is a worry for some volunteers ensure you have a structure and procedures in place. A handbook for everyone is useful plus one that is clearly available for everyone. Having a policy in place for everything from Health and Safety to Lone working to who to call if the toilet is blocked will allow them to make informed decisions without constantly having to wait for someone to ask.

Working with volunteers is inspiring, frustrating, hard work but fun and they are biggest asset you can have, care for them wisely.

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