Voluntears part 1
The trials and tribulations of a minor civic volunteer force, in a small town, don't amount to much, particularly given all the trials and tribulations in different parts of the world right now. However, I would be remiss, in my role teaching about management issues, if I did not use this opportunity to point out significant lessons from this occurrence. As I have noted, someone seems to be supremely and spectacularly ignorant of the principles of management of volunteer groups. The failure to take even the most basic steps in handling volunteers, in this particular case, illustrate a number of very important principles.
I cannot speak to the management of the termination of the manager. I know that the manager was quite hurt by how things have proceeded, but it is the volunteer management that I am attempting to address.
Even before even before the meeting with the volunteers, which hasn't taken place yet, at least twenty percent (and some indications are at least half) of the volunteer force have already resigned. In addition, a group of the volunteers have taken it upon themselves to meet with each other in order to decide on what action to take, probably in rebellion against the mismanagement of the entire process. However, in addition, a *second* group of the volunteers, possibly in opposition to the proposed rebellion meeting, have called what I can only surmise is an *anti*-rebellion meeting, at the official office of the volunteer group. (I strongly suspect that this is an anti-rebellion group, based on the fact that they have attempted to call this meeting and hold it in the official office, completely ignoring the fact that the volunteers, themselves, without official sanction from the organizing enterprise, have no right to call and hold meetings in the official office.) The pretty-much-certain reduction in force does not directly corelate to the reduction in effective work. Even those who stay on are likely to be less enthusiastic, and reduce their commitment to the activities of the group. In addition, there are minimum staffing levels for most of the activities, and, in combination, a reduction in volunteers even by a quarter is likely to result in hours of work falling by more than *three* quarters (in comparison to previous levels), and may result in the group being disbanded.
So, even before any of these meetings have been held, things are already a complete mess.
I have over thirty years experience as a professional management consultant, mostly for Fortune 500 companies. But, in terms of volunteer management, I can double that. So, when I say that this is the most egregiously badly handled volunteer situation that I have seen in six decades, you can believe me.
Volunteer management is not the same as management of employees. You can't threaten their pay, because you don't pay them. You *can* threaten to fire them, and it's a fairly easy thing to do, because there is no equivalent of a Labor Relations Board for volunteers. However, if you fire them, the volunteer work that you need to get done, doesn't get done. In addition (and particularly in a small town), disgruntled former volunteers can be a significant impediment to getting replacements.
Volunteers have a variety of motivations for doing volunteer work. Primarily, most volunteers see a job that needs to be done, and are willing to do it. They are helping their community: their neighbors, their friends, their family, and people that they don't know, and never will know. They do it out of the goodness of their heart.
There are a variety of sub or secondary motivations that can go into volunteer work. In my particular case, I do a lot of volunteer work, simply to prevent myself from committing suicide, so, possibly I have a bit more skin in the game than most. But volunteers volunteer for a variety of reasons. Some like the socialization with their fellow volunteers. (Some definitely don't.) Some like the authority that being a volunteer gives them. I frequently tell students and others at career presentations that you should always take any opportunity for volunteer work, number one because it looks good on your resume, and number two because it allows you to do things that people would never allow you to do in paid employment.
Volunteers will always say that they don't expect to be thanked. At least three of my current volunteer positions are, quite literally, thankless jobs, because you are dealing with people who are under stress when you are dealing with them. However, everybody likes to be thanked for what they do. So, one of the very basic principles of volunteer management is that you thank your volunteers. You don't have to be effusive about it. As a matter of fact, you should probably *
avoid* being effusive, and, particularly, reduce the number of politicians that you ask to come to any "thank the volunteers" event, because politicians get very effusive in verbally thanking the volunteers. This is, of course, because politicians like to hear themselves talk, and giving a very long-winded expression of thanks to the volunteers allows them to talk longer. But the volunteers are quite well aware that talk is cheap. If the politicians really wanted to thank the volunteers, then rather than standing up and giving a long winded speech, they should actually come and
listen to the volunteers. But, of course, politicians don't
listen to anybody, so that's not going to happen.
But, in any case, you do thank the volunteers, at every opportunity, when you are managing volunteers. You write them cards and letters of thanks, and sometimes make up certificates of thanks. Generally speaking you provide lunches, or dinners, or special events, at various times during the year to thank the volunteers. This is why it was so signally illustrative, in the current case, that the letter to the volunteers did *not* express appreciation for the volunteers' work. The only thing the letter thanked the volunteers for was their understanding.
(The thanks for the understanding was highly ironic, since the letter which contained it contained almost no explanation of the situation, and the facts of the case, and therefore none of us actually had any understanding of the situation.)
Research into customer engagement, and customer relationship management, has proven over and over again that, once you have done something that loses you a customer, it is five times as hard to get that customer back, as to gain a customer in the first place. The same sorts of studies have indicated that, whereas if you do something really good for a customer, and they appreciate it as being above and beyond normal product function or customer service, they will tell, on average, one person. But, if you make them angry, on average they will tell ten people. It is, therefore, extremely well established in any kind of management, and particularly customer relationship management, that you go to great lengths to avoid annoying your customers.
The same is true of volunteers. In fact, it is even more so. The volunteer feels, with significant justification, that they are doing something for you. Volunteers feel a very significant connection with the enterprise for whom they are doing volunteer work. This sense of connection very often exceeds the sense of connection between employees and employers. Therefore, if you do something to seriously annoy a volunteer, there is, in addition to the loss of trust which such an action may entail, a very strong sense of betrayal. The volunteers will feel that you have let them down. Therefore, it is yet another extremely strong principle of volunteer management, that you do whatever you can to avoid making your volunteers mad. This is quite separate from thanking them, or providing gifts or perks to them. They know that the thanks, and gifts, and perks, are extremely cheap in comparison to the work that they have done for you. Volunteer work is generally work that needs to be done but that nobody can pay for, because there simply isn't enough money to pay for that work, regardless of how necessary it is. So the perks, and the gifts, and the thanks, whether verbal or written, don't compare with the work that the volunteers have, in fact, provided for you. Therefore to show your ingratitude, and lack of appreciation for the volunteers' service, by making their volunteer work more difficult, or by failing to support them in a particular undertaking which they feel that they are performing for you, is the ultimate betrayal. And volunteers react appropriately to that sense of betrayal.
In the particular case under study, the betrayal is the dismissal of the paid manager. Now it is always problematic, in volunteer management, having to deal with a situation with both paid staff and volunteer workers. Paid staff feel, and quite rightly, that they have certain hours of work, and certain tasks and functions which they have been asked to perform, and that anything beyond those hours or functions is an imposition. Volunteers, on the other hand, frequently put in many more hours than they clock. They have a sense of ownership of the task, whatever it is, and will, quite happily, continue working well beyond any established completion time, in order to get the job done. Volunteers will perform additional functions, beyond any official remit. Volunteers are much less concerned about whether a particular task is within their job description, preferring instead to meet a need that they see. Indeed, a large part of volunteer management is to try, without insulting the volunteers, to limit the scope of their activities to a predefined set. Volunteers tend to go above and beyond, and to range far and wide. It is sometimes with difficulty, and requiring a great deal of sensitivity, that one can explain to a volunteer why what they think they need to do is, in fact, beyond the scope of their duties, beyond their training and experience, and possibly unsafe for them.
Volunteers, used to pretty much always going above and beyond, have difficulty in understanding why, if they make a request of paid staff, the paid staff can't put in an extra half an hour of work, or perform some task which is not part of their job description. Managing this kind of conflict is always a large part of management in a situation that has both paid staff and volunteer workers.
So volunteers are not always convinced by arguments of time budgets, and expense budgets, and scope of work. These are normal parameters in any employee and employer situation, and tend to immediately end any argument. Not so with volunteers.
In addition, in regard to the situation immediately under study, the manager had managed, and built, this particular team of volunteers to a particularly high standard. This particular team of volunteers was exemplary for the entire region. It performed service well in excess of municipal areas three or four times the size of the one in which they were situated. It performed functions performed by no other similar group within the region. And this was, in very large measure, due to the efforts of the manager of this particular team.
In addition, of course, it was this manager who spoke to the volunteers, gave them details of assignments, dealt with any questions or conflicts, and, of course, arranged all of the "thank the volunteers" events. Other people from the enterprise that was being supported would, occasionally, drop in and attend certain functions. (Particularly the Christmas banquet, which was the highlight of the year. Having some strange politician drop in just to eat your food is not a great way to build connection and relationship. And, as long as we're talking about ways to thank the volunteers, this particular manager was tireless at going to various businesses in the area and obtaining gifts which could then be handed out at prizes to the volunteers.) The volunteers had built up significant trust in this manager, over many years of working together.
So the abrupt firing of this manager left the volunteers without any connection. Almost none of the volunteers had any connection to, or contact with, those at higher levels of the enterprise being served. Their boss, their supporter, the person that they dealt with all the time, was gone. Very suddenly. And without explanation: they were being told extremely little from the other authorities in the enterprise who had, presumably, fired their boss. And, understandably, they had no reason to trust either those higher in the organization, or the minimum that they were being told. (Trust is vital in *any* personnel management situation, as it is in pretty much all social situations. Employees will accept just about any foible in a manager, as long as that foible is consistent.)
(In addition to the specific failure in terms of volunteer management, this also demonstrates a significant failure in terms of business continuity. There was, and is, no backup for the management of the group. Indeed, I doubt that anyone in the organization is even aware of the total scope of tasks that the manager covered. I find this additionally ironic: I have, for some time, been trying to get this group, and another involved in emergency management, to work together so as to be able to cover and support each other.)
The volunteers felt abandoned. Not by their boss: they know he had been fired. By the enterprise. They felt insulted, on their boss's behalf. They had no idea what was going on, and the enterprise did not do anything in particular to make it any clearer to them.
As I say, with sixty years of volunteer management experience, I can honestly say that I cannot recall any situation, in a volunteer organization, that was handled as poorly as this one. And I have, in fact, being a part of a volunteer organization, where the entire organization was disbanded, and effectively fired, at the whim of a change in the parent enterprise. Not even that one was handled poorly as this one.
(Situation, and Lesson, ongoing ...)
