In any kind of management there are three levels of management and planning: operational, tactical, and strategic.
Operational planning and management is short-term. It deals with the day-to-day, and the immediate task. Most of the operational planning for your volunteers office or department will probably fall to the volunteers themselves. The volunteers are, by and large, going to be undertaking tasks generally independent of you for immediate direction. They will be ensuring that they have the resources that they need for the immediate shift, or task, that the necessary group of volunteers have shown up, that they have the right equipment and determine by asking you whether anything has recently happened that changes the task that will probably have been planned by you previously. As noted, this is primarily done by the volunteers themselves, although they will get direction from you as to any changes, and will report to you in terms of resources expended, damage to equipment, successful completionism task for otherwise, and any administrative details and reports that detail to completion of the tasks.
Tactical planning and management is primarily your job. This deals not necessarily with the individuals day-to-day tasks, but with midterm planning. You will be keeping an eye on the overall inventory of resources and equipment, the hours of work by the volunteers, noting who is doing too much and is in danger of burnout, and who is not doing enough and may need a bit of encouragement, and keeping track of the completion of tasks or the failure to complete tasks, and the types of tasks that are completed, and possibly types of tasks that aren't. You will be noting the details of the reports that the volunteers turn in. You will be planning for the future, ordering supplies, not only as needed, but sometimes possibly *before* needed, in order to ensure that the resources are available to the volunteers when they are needed.
Strategic planning and management is larger in scope, and longer in term. This is going to be primarily involved with the Board, or senior management of the organization. This is generally beyond the scope of your job as a manager of volunteers. This is going to involve the perception of the organization within the community, for issues of fundraising and resource acquisition, and overview of the objectives, long-term and overall, of the parent organization, and whether there need to be changes in the tasks that the volunteers should be organized should be encouraged to pursue, and the position of the organization within the larger community over the long term, trying to look at least five years down the road.
The thing is, that these three levels of planning and management apply to any kind, and any level, of management. You, as a manager of volunteers, have operational tasks that you need to address every day. You need to the reading the reports that the volunteers turn in to you. You need to be noting who shows up for shifts, and who possibly is late, or doesn't show up at all. You need to keep an eye out for attitudes, and signs of tension, between the groups of volunteers that are working together. You need to know individual problems that may happen on individual shifts, but which happened consistently, and therefore may indicate a need for additional training of the volunteers overall, to address this particular problem.
Reading of the reports is operational. The analysis of the types of problems that show up on the reports, and considering that further training may be necessary is going to be tactical. You also have overall tactical management that you are going to be needing to deal with in your job. Ensuring that volunteers are showing up for shifts, to cover the tasks as necessary. Recruiting new volunteers on an ongoing basis to fill any vacancies as people leave the organization. Planning attendance for any kinds of events within your larger community as may be appropriate to your organization, and to the volunteers that you have.
But there is also strategic planning and management that you need to undertake in your own job. You are reading the operational reports from the volunteers, and, from your analysis of that, planning what you need to report to senior management, or to the Board, in terms of changing needs or priorities. You may also need to strategize, again, with data that you are receiving from the daily operational reports, educate, guide, or simply influence the decisions that senior management and the Board may be making that affect you. You are going to be making representation to senior management in terms of your overall budget, even though salaries for the volunteers are not part of what you need to budget for. (Perks, equipment, appreciations, and parties for the volunteers are part of what you have to budget for.)
Volunteer management - VM - 0.00 - introduction and table of contents
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