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Why we need people centric leadership in events

We see varying levels of system approaches and people centric approaches in volunteer management. One approach is relying on a volunteer management system (software) to solve the recruitment problem, the other is reluctance to use a system out of fear to lose the connection with volunteers. I believe the solution is a combination of a system approach AND people centric leaders to run a volunteer program effectively.

We often get asked one of the following two questions “Why do I need a system, I am just fine doing the rostering in my head?” and “How much is it to use your database?” Then the other day I listened to a podcast where an accountant spoke about their service and the impact of accounting software on the service they provide. Now everyone can basically do their own accounting but it doesn’t replace the service that is provided by professional accountants. I could see so many parallels to volunteer management in event and community organisations.

Seven years ago when we started Eventeamwork there were very few volunteer management systems on the market. Back then volunteer management typically involved many manual tasks around rostering and communication, particularly for volunteer programs involving hundreds of people over multiple days. These days there are literally hundreds of software solution to assist with database management and rostering on the market and there are more appearing every other week.

The search for efficiency and automation is changing the volunteer management field just like in the accounting profession. The system is really important to assist with the manual tasks, avoid errors and provide a better and faster registration experience for people. Coordinators save time and do their jobs more efficiently. They can now concentrate on planning and improving the volunteer program, focussing on communication and engagement, all of which will make the program more effective.

However the thread of having a system, particularly if it includes automation such as automatic confirmations and reminder messages, self-scheduling, self check-in etc, it can also be easy to lose touch with your volunteers. Where previously there would have been many emails and phone calls to determine availability and confirming rosters, we now need to find other ways to stay connected and have real communications.

Engagement is important and can get lost in the process of relying too much on the system. This unfortunately results in low attendance and low retention rates. The missing engagement and connection also contributes to volunteers at times being seen as a commodity rather than a valuable team member.

Interestingly the system approach is often experienced in event volunteer programs, whereas volunteer coordinators in community organisations tend to be fully aware of the importance of the engagement piece and the organisations often shy away from systems.

Just like in the accountant example, volunteer management systems cannot replace a volunteer coordinator. They cannot replace the building of relationships and connections between people and organisations. However systems can indeed add convenience and efficiency to the profession that allows volunteer coordinators to focus on planning and improvement rather than being bogged down by manual tasks.

As with everything, it’s about finding the right balance.

An effective volunteer program combines system and people centric leadership

While a good system helps volunteer coordinators be more efficient, to be able to really engage people and to retain people over time we need to go beyond systems. Engagement is key to achieving positive outcomes for organisations. Creating positive experiences for volunteers and engaging them in the outcomes will have a ripple effect on creating positive experiences for clients or attendees.

Volunteer management is more than allocating bodies to positions and the aspect of managing people, having conversations, ensuring well-being and satisfaction cannot be replaced by even the greatest systems.

Your engagement determines your culture, it is how you interact with staff, volunteers and people in general. Your culture will determine if your organisation can reach a competitive advantage. Anyone can replicate products and services. Anyone can get a volunteer management system but it’s what you do with it that will make all the difference. Nobody can replicate your unique culture.

So yes, systems are great in making our life easier and saving time on manual tasks but considering people and engagement will set you apart.

A Solution to Recruiting Volunteers for your next Event

recruiting volunteers

I lost count of how many times recruiting volunteers has been pointed out to be a challenge for event organisers. Not having enough volunteers, not having the “right” volunteers and volunteers not showing up are commonly reported problems.

This is supported by many articles stating that often there are not enough resources put into volunteer recruitment to ensure we have enough and the right people supporting the organisation. As a result event organisers wear themselves out recruiting double the amount of volunteers.

Simple math isn’t it? We need more volunteers to cover the ‘no shows’ so let’s recruit more! When looking closer though we often observe exhausted and frustrated event organisers who still end up short-staffed.

Yes, more investments are required for managing volunteers. However, simply putting more resources into the recruitment without considering the bigger picture is in fact a waste of your resources. Solely focusing on recruitment is commonly considered the solution and it just seems the most obvious one. However it is a short-term fix that doesn’t actually solve the problem, which means it will be re-occurring at the next event.

A different approach

We need to acknowledge that recruiting and retaining volunteers for events goes beyond rustling up some people to help out for a day. We need to stop seeing volunteers as a commodity. It carries the assumption that there are people just on stand by to help at any given event.

With recruitment being the most tangible task in volunteer management, organisations consistently spent time and money on advertising and call outs to fill positions.

While this is absolutely needed to make people aware these opportunities exist, I believe a more holistic approach with a long-term solution rather than a short-term fix is required.

This means any organisation can save resources down the track by investing in a positive sustainable outcome rather than solely into filling the next position. Recruitment is part of the solution but not the sole focus.

Essentially, if retention rates and show up rates are consistently low, this is not a recruitment problem and usually cannot be solved by just recruiting more people. It usually indicates one or more of the following three problems.

Culture 

A culture that acknowledges the contribution volunteers make and communicates what makes your event unique and how volunteers are part of it will be attractive to potential volunteers and it will also ensure volunteers stay engaged. A less supportive organisational culture can significantly increase your recruitment needs and thus your costs.

Culture is one of the determining factors to retain employees, not to mention volunteers. With more and more choices available, culture will be a competitive advantage in terms of retaining people in the organisation.

Visibility 

You might have a great organisation with a great cause or providing a great service, but your market doesn’t know about it.

Being visible will attract customers, sponsors, staff, volunteers – in short your event community. You may need to raise the profile of your organisation or event to attract your community. Volunteers are part of your audience, so building your audience is half the battle.

Clearly defined roles 

Could your volunteer roles be too vague or too restrictive? If the role is unclear people may be cautious to sign up.

Make sure the volunteer roles you are recruiting for are clear from the outset. This way you can manage expectations and ensure the people who register are already committed to some degree. Being too vague may get you a lot of registrations but no commitment. Being too restrictive on the other hand may mean you lose out on some great candidates.

If your organisation struggles with any of these problems, purely spending more time and money on recruitment, will not be an efficient use of your resources.

In this case a more holistic approach will be more efficient and effective to achieve your desired outcome of recruiting more volunteers. This includes investing in the volunteer management strategy & planning rather than just investing in recruitment and implementation.

A volunteer program strategy will integrate into the organisational strategy and address the points above, so that you can implement an effective volunteer program.

We have put together a 6-Step Checklist that will help you create a more effective volunteer program step by step. You will avoid all the above mistakes and save time and money while achieving better results. CLICK HERE for FREE download.

5 Tips to Boost your Event Volunteer Recruitment

Volunteer Recruitment

Volunteer recruitment is the most obvious part of the volunteer management process. That is likely the reason why it is often interchangeably referred to as volunteer management.

Volunteer management however is a lot more complex with planning, engagement, training, support and communication. Volunteer recruitment is a part of this system – a crucial part of course in ensuring we get people involved with our event. Understanding its interdependency with the other areas of volunteer management is the key to succeed with volunteer recruitment.

The recruitment process can be challenging and stressful as many events heavily rely on volunteers but struggle with attracting enough volunteers. I have put together a few tips to help boost volunteer recruitment for your next event.

1. Preparation

Planning your recruitment is essential. Otherwise the recruitment drive is random, likely resulting in a poor outcome. It is key to plan how people will reach you and sign up. You can have the best recruitment call in place but if you don’t have an effective registration process you will lose people along the way before they even register.

Make registering easy. If you put yourself in the shoes of the potential volunteer during the process, you will be able to identify any obstacles that may prevent people from signing up. You could also test your process with a few colleagues.

Beware that the devil is in the detail. Think of a clearly structured volunteer registration page, an easy-to-navigate form and a phone number available for people to call if they encounter difficulties as a great foundation for your volunteer recruitment.

2. Roles

It is very common in the event industry to manage volunteers on a task by task basis rather than creating roles. Unfortunately, the more basic the role the less meaningful it is to the volunteer. Consider that the more importance you put on a role, the more importance a volunteer will put on its execution.

People are looking to assist events and organisations in a meaningful way. In addition, often people who volunteer are highly skilled in their professions. Most of these skills are transferable, so why not tap into this resource of expertise if it satisfies the event’s and the volunteer’s needs at the same time?

Creating meaningful roles will make roles more attractive for recruitment but also create a higher volunteer engagement, which will impact the overall visitor experience.

3. Your Offer

Your offer determines whom you attract as a volunteer. Incentives can be part of your offer but the most important is the experience you offer to a volunteer. In other terms what the volunteer will get out of volunteering at your event. This can differ from person to person but generally this may include skill development, being involved with a cause they care about, pro bono skilled work, meeting people and numerous others.

Consider the volunteer roles you need to fill and who would be your ideal person to fill these. Your ideal person may be part of a specific interest group or a specific industry. And your ideal person may be looking for different experiences and incentives than what you are currently offering.

Considering your target volunteers and their needs will help you create an offer that if delivered will keep volunteers motivated and committed to your event.

4. Channels

With email being less and less effective for recruitment conversations, it seems obvious to turn to social media. Social media hugely assists volunteer recruitment as it opened up opportunities to target specific groups, interests and locations.

However, it is also important to review where you find your ideal target market. There may be easier ways to reach them more effectively at a local club or at an expo for example.

Choosing the relevant channels will save you time and allows you to craft a tailored message.

5. Communication

Communication is key, both to events and to working with people. The more you can communicate and keep people informed along the way, the better engagement you will achieve.

The message you are trying to get across needs to be very clear to be effective. In marketing, going out to everyone is the most expensive way of promoting an opportunity. The same is true for volunteer recruitment. Going out and asking everyone dilutes the message.

A clear, targeted message lays out the benefits and requirements relevant to the target market before people register to volunteer.

Communicating more clearly before people register will achieve two things. It will show the commitment required, which will attract people who are serious about helping out. It will also cut out the ones who were not serious in the first place but just sign up in case it could become interesting. A clear message will save you a lot of time in the recruitment process and beyond.

Want some help?

How effective your volunteer recruitment is largely depends on how well you prepare for it and the clarity of your message to your target market.

If you need help with your volunteer recruitment check out our 6-Step Checklist that will help you improve volunteer recruitment and create better events.  CLICK HERE for FREE download.

7 mistakes to avoid when managing events with volunteers

Many events cannot run without volunteers. However, often managers don’t realise the full value the volunteer program can bring to their event and organisation. Think about volunteers not showing up or volunteers not knowing what to do. In those instances the time and money spent can even have a negative impact on the event. As a result many event organisers become frustrated about working with volunteers.

It doesn’t have to be that way. On the contrary, if you are implementing a volunteer program already, why not find a way to make it more enjoyable for everyone AND run more successful events?

To achieve better event outcomes, here are the 7 things to avoid when managing volunteers for your event.

1. Hiring the wrong coordinator

Volunteer Management is often considered an entry-level role in the industry. However it’s a complex role and requires project coordination skills as well as people skills. The wrong hire will leave the volunteer coordinator overwhelmed, finding it hard to deliver all aspects of the program. This will impact the volunteers, as they may not get the attention they need.

Ultimately this affects the organisation as it leads to volunteers leaving or being disengaged and unsatisfied staff. This leads to a high turnover of volunteer coordinators.

Remember you are just as good as your team and having the right skills on your team will create better outcomes.

2. Not training enough

Volunteers completing only short shifts at an event can create the illusion that you don’t need to train them as much or that you don’t want to take more of their time.

Unfortunately, if you don’t train volunteers on their tasks as well as the bigger picture of the event, they cannot support you. This impacts your event but it also impacts your volunteers, as they feel inadequate and undervalued.

Adequate training and sharing information and your vision will empower your volunteers and integrate them into your organisational goals. This will make your work easier on site and have a positive affect not only on the volunteers but also on your event.

3. Seeing volunteers as free or saving costs

Uniforms and food for volunteers are standard budget items. However budgets often don’t allow for systems and dedicated management to run the volunteer program effectively. As a result volunteer coordinators spend a lot of time on manual tasks and are reactive rather than proactively planning and improving processes.

Make the spending on your volunteer program worthwhile by investing in planning and structuring in order to meet your organisational objectives. Without that, your budgets are used inefficiently and your volunteer program becomes a cost. The return on investment you’d want to achieve is similar to that of marketing expenses. It will show a positive image, brand awareness, and engagement of people with your event.

4. Improvising

When coordinators are engaged on temporary short contracts they often do not have enough time for planning. As a result they are just reacting to email, phone calls or the issue at hand and improvise. The volunteer program always gets implemented but with no structure or plan, the results are vague. Due to the lack of other factors to measure, the success of the volunteer program is often measured by volunteer hours spent. However, this doesn’t provide a qualitative result of how those hours were spent.

A well-planned volunteer program will start with looking for ways to improve on the previous year to achieve a different outcome. However you need to allow sufficient time for planning and structuring your next volunteer program. Once you have clear objectives you can build in indicators to measure success. You will then be able to receive a different and qualitative result in addition to the number of hours spent.

5. Focusing on recruitment only

Based on show up rates being about 50-60% in the event industry, the decision is often made to do more recruitment to allow for those large numbers not showing up.

Rather than spending the time to recruit double the amount of people, spend the time to analyse the show up rate and focus on strategies to increase this rate. As with employee engagement, volunteer engagement is very important to increase output and retention, which will show in the volunteer show up rate.

The difference to employee engagement is that volunteers have a much quicker exit from the organisation if they don’t feel valued. But volunteers are part of your team same as your staff, so engagement strategies you use for your employees mostly also work for your volunteers.

6. Thinking short-term

Annual events often work on shorter-term cycles and most of the event team is engaged on a less than 12-month contract. Staff is then only focused on the upcoming event.

Volunteer programs generally support the organisational plan and community engagement. As volunteers are a big part of the events the focus is often only on the event operations rather than the bigger picture.

Over time it can create the impression that the volunteer program only exists for the event rather than the organisation. This generates not only more work but also a lack of focus on the volunteers as they tend to be seen as temporary rather than integral to the organisation.

If you apply a strategic approach, it will ensure the program is aligned with the organisation. It creates a higher purpose for the volunteers and higher engagement and retention rates. A strategic approach saves time and money in the long run.

7. Dismissing the volunteer experience

Your volunteers’ experience is just as important as your customers’ experience. Often volunteers are taken for granted or treated differently to other people who engage with your event.

People who volunteer are part of your audience. They are connected to your vision and share your passion. Passion goes a long way, but after a bad experience or two they will spend their valuable time elsewhere and you may lose them as a volunteer and a customer.

Provide your volunteers with a great experience and focus on their benefits and their passion will enhance your event and organisation in a huge way. What better PR is there than having hundreds of brand ambassadors?

Don’t let this happen to you

As you can see an effective volunteer program takes a lot of effort. But if you are already running a volunteer program, can you afford not to put in the effort?

We hope you find these tips useful to critically analyse your volunteer program and make adjustments so it can stand out and exceed your event and organisational objectives.

We have put together a 6-Step Checklist that will help you create a more effective volunteer program step by step. You will avoid all the above mistakes and save time and money while achieving better results. CLICK HERE for FREE download.

New Year’s Challenge

New Year Challenge

New Year ChallengeSo it’s six weeks into 2015 and we have already finished three amazing events. February, with the major summer events behind us, is usually the time we celebrate our New Year and start planning for the next one. Accordingly, we wish all of you a very Happy New Year!

New Year is also traditionally a time for resolutions, and I’d like to invite you to join us in ours. This year, my resolution for Eventeamwork is to create stronger links between you and your volunteer community. We find that organisations that take time to think about their volunteers before, during and after events get better results, so we have a challenge for you.

Volunteering is a very special experience, and it’s an experience you deserve to have – so here’s your challenge: volunteer for something this year, for someone else’s event or festival or fundraiser. It’s a chance for you to see what volunteer management looks like from the other side of the fence but more than that, it’s a way for you to more deeply understand what volunteers do, how crucial they are to the events and organisations they serve, and exactly what you and us can do to give your volunteers the kind of experience that will make them sign up again and again.

Between all of your great events we have a great variety of choices. We are constantly updating our homepage with new opportunities so check it out and let us know where you want to get involved. We look forward to seeing you all very soon!

Here is to a great year of volunteering in 2015!

Small gestures make for big returns

Small Gestures

Christmas is such a two-headed beast for most of us – equal parts stress and joy, a frenetic loop of decorating, shopping, wrapping, and cooking to prep for the big day where hopefully it all comes together and we can finally enjoy each others’ company. There’s so much to do, and it’s madness to try to do it all on your own.

In my experience you can’t make a good Christmas without a good team, which is why it seems to me that Christmas is a lot like volunteer management. The way Christmas works is the way all events work. You plan the day > you recruit your team > you lead and direct them, engage and inspire > you teach them what they need to know so they can do a great job > and finally you thank them.

This last stage – so often forgotten – feeds straight back into the recruitment stage for next time. Thanking volunteers, expressing gratitude and making them feel appreciated is what ensures they will volunteer again. Who wants to volunteer for something that makes them feel invisible?

Simple moments of recognition are crucial to the success of the relationship between the organiser and the team. That’s what Christmas is about – the relationships between friends and family, taking the time to notice each other and be grateful for having those people in our lives. And that’s what the volunteer movement is about too. The research is clear that an overwhelming number of  people who volunteer do so to experience community and connection. This Christmas I’m hoping we will all honour that motivation by expressing our thanks to everyone on our teams. Because ‘thank you’ always feels good, whether you are receiving or giving.

So before you tidy your desk and head off to your family celebrations, how about sending an email to thank the volunteers who helped you in 2014? It’s a small gesture but it goes a long way towards keeping your volunteers happy, so they’ll step up for you again next year. Letting people know you saw their work and that you really valued it – that’s the greatest gift you can give.

We are wishing a smooth and merry Christmas to you and yours.

Do young people want to volunteer?

One of the many myths about volunteering is that most volunteers are older people—generally people think of retirees volunteering at the local op-shop!

Of course that isn’t the whole picture. The highest rates of volunteering are to be found in the 45-54 age bracket, but that doesn’t mean that younger people don’t, or don’t want to, volunteer.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics found that of all the people who volunteered in 2010, 9.4% were between 18 and 24. As almost 6.1 million people volunteered in that year, that means well over half a million young people volunteered. Overall, more than 27% of young people volunteered in 2010.

Young people do indeed want to volunteer, and are an important cohort. As might be expected, volunteering for groups related to sport and recreation was the most popular choice, with over 183,000 volunteering. But they aren’t the only group to prefer those kinds of events—all volunteers up to the age of 65 show a preference for sport and recreation.

Young people also volunteered strongly for religious groups, and almost half volunteered at least once a week. Most also stuck to one organisation. This points to an important point about youth volunteers—one of the reasons they volunteer is to be with friends, which means they are often influenced to volunteer by their peer groups.

So how do groups encourage young people to volunteer? Recent research by Volunteering Tasmaniafound that young people value skill development and like to feel they are genuinely making a contribution, but that there were some important practical factors that helped them engage.

Young people needed roles that reflected their lifestyles, which generally could not accommodate regular commitments, and they often found transport a problem. The research also found that most groups didn’t use social media platforms like Facebook enough—the younger generation looks first and foremost at the web to gain information and communicate, and any organisation serious about attracting young volunteers needs to connect with them there.

Offline, young people are very engaged with their peers, so having young volunteer ambassadors and making personal approaches through peer networks, schools and families was also essential—backed by a strong web presence, a short and easy application process and a personal point of contact within the organisation.

Once engaged in volunteering, the research also found that young people overwhelmingly felt that they would continue to volunteer in later years, so engaging volunteers positively while they are young paves the way for an ongoing ‘volunteering habit’.

Perhaps the question is not whether young people want to volunteer, but whether organisations are doing the right things to facilitate young people’s volunteering.

2013 Special Olympics – one week, 3500 volunteers

2013 Special Olympics

One of our biggest events last year was the Special Olympics 2013 Asia Pacific Games (SOAPG 2013), held in Newcastle in the first week of December.

The Games was one of the largest community events the Hunter region has ever seen, with 2500 athletes competing from 29 nations, 600 officials and an estimated 200,000 visitors – all adding up to an injection of more than $20 million for the local economy.

Eventeamwork was engaged by the Games team to run the volunteer program, which was sponsored by ClubsNSW. The team came up with the idea of ‘Volunteer Champions’, a program which invited local businesses to promote the games and the opportunity to volunteer.

It proved an excellent way to secure local engagement, and ClubsNSW drove a huge local campaign through over 100 clubs in the region to attract a group of 25 Volunteer Champions, including organisations that already had a strong commitment to community partnerships and that could tap into large member or volunteer bases. The Champions really got behind the Games, not only promoting the event but giving their employees time to participate.

One Champion, Hunter TAFE, won funding from State Training Services to fund a Certificate II in Tourism for up to 350 volunteers, and ClubsNSW ran the campaign to encourage volunteers to take the training.

This year, the outstanding support of ClubsNSW was acknowledged when they won the award for Outstanding Regional Initiative at the 2014 Clubs & Community Awards.
We at Eventeamwork are extremely proud to see this kind of recognition for the efforts of the local community – it was so inspiring to see so many local businesses and individuals jump on board to support the Special Olympics and make it such a successful event – not just for the region and its businesses, but for all the athletes, the spectators and the fantastic cohort of volunteers.

The ‘Volunteer Champions’ concept set a high standard for similar events and, according to Jon Chin, the Newcastle & Hunter Representative of ClubsNSW, the model is being used by organisers of other major events in the region and beyond.