Recruiting The Right Personnel For The Community Service Industry

When one volunteers, it is not for their personal gain, yet rather for the benefit of others. The volunteering opportunity would enable one to make a direct connection with others. Thus, the volunteers get

These volunteers can be motivated by highlighting to them that, this is an opportunity for them to sharpen their skills and knowledge through experience of this

A key to defining this group and their responsibilities is to explain their status. The term volunteer is defined as, “persons who did unpaid work (except for expenses) through or for an organization” (USDL, 2015). The nature of a professional, or someone who is paid for their work, demonstrates an implicit motivator in the payment. The duties and responsibilities that are performed by the person whether the duties are assigned or created by the person also have a general connotation. The collection of activities these individuals perform is known in the literature as “volunteering” (Stebbins, 2009, Wilson,

Volunteering is often seen as free labor. However, there is a significant cost associated with the recruitment, training, and maintenance of the volunteer force. A full-time staff to oversee the volunteer program is necessary as well to ensure volunteers are being used effectively. The recruitment process varies from advertising to speaking at schools to

Every organization should have some type of incentive plan for staff. As previously mentioned, it is important to keep staff motivated to edify the success of an organization. Motivation and incentive concepts are closely linked because they both encourage staff to perform in a better way. The difference is that motivation can be words, but incentives are typically tangible and specific. According to the Houston Chronicle, incentive plans offer recognition and rewards to employees for meeting pre-established goals or objectives. This can include cash bonuses, profit sharing, additional paid vacation time or any range of prizes such as gift cards, corporate merchandise or other products or services (McQuerrey n.d.). Again, the objective is to motivate and to ensure its effectiveness the goal of the incentive program being offered must be clearly defined, viable and valuable for whatever the staff is being asked to do.

By doing this, you will then be aware of who is available to volunteer. This also comes in handy when targeting a specific population. For example, here at United Way we are part of a mentoring program for children. By determining how the community is made up, you can schedule visits with high schools and/or colleges in the community to recruit these said mentors for our younger population. While learning who already volunteers you will also need to determine when they volunteer, where they volunteer at, and why they volunteer. You may ask questions to find out if they volunteer all the time, as a hobby, or do they only volunteer for specific programs/events. Are there specific organizations they volunteer for, and if so, why. If not, have they ever volunteered for United Way and would they be interested in continuing to do so. At this time you would then pass along your knowledge of the organization as well as whatever you have handy that can direct them towards more knowledge and upcoming programs/events such as a brochure or the website address. This research also comes into play when talking to people who have never volunteered and are interested in doing so. You may approach these peoples a little different than someone who already has their foot in the door so to speak. You will first get to know their demographics and their hobbies. Certain demographics such as age, and ethnicity,

The organization is foregoing telling volunteers about their organization and why they’re there. I think volunteer and the organization’s motivations are misaligned. As we heard in our Lincoln Park Zoo field trip, if volunteers are not aligned with the organization, they might start acting within their own rules. Most of the volunteers are students either from college or high school and some are interns. After seeing people in action for a few days, it is clear that volunteers are focus on the end and not the process of helping. This creates problems where they have lack of motivation to do an outstanding job and instead settle for just passing time until they can get out. According to [OTT footnote], when managing volunteers, they must know a clear reason why they’re there. It also ties up with Simon Sinek talk where he argues that why is very important question which drives behavior [Simon Sinek

Nonprofits should evaluate its volunteers on base on the job description. The evaluations should provide feedback and help better develop the volunteer. The evaluation should not be used a “weeding out “tool or method to eliminate persons volunteering. There is also a such thing as informal evaluations. An informal evaluation can be an inquiry for one person to another about a volunteer’s work ethic. In the event volunteers fall short in their volunteer duties McCurley recommended six

This paper examines the literature addressing the underlying factors in long term commitment of volunteers to community service organisations. It places the reasons given by volunteers for both joining and staying, into the context of motivation theory. It is motivation theory that provides a foundation for understanding what attracts volunteers to community service, what factors encourage them to stay long term and what causes them to leave. The paper concludes that when those factors are interpreted from the perspective of motivation theory, managers of

relationships and giving of oneself. Being a volunteer can change lives and can lead oneself to a

Based on my current ongoing experience, I believe the factors that make up a quality volunteer experience resolves around communication and interaction as it opens doors for individuals to share common ideas and thoughts from different perspectives allowing volunteering to serve as a social medium. Furthermore, being able to understand the true meaning behind why an organization is driven to give back to the community allows volunteers to see what is expected and how they can give back to their community in a positive manner. I have been able to create such an experience for myself while working as a Volunteer Teaching Assistant by being able to build communication and social skills, allowing me to learn how I can assist students understand certain concepts discussed within the class and how they can become successful and obtain so much from a particular class that is going to play a beneficiary role for them in their future career paths. The duties and responsibilities I have completed consist of teaching laboratory material via lectures and lab experiments, grading a number of different assignments, and organization of paperwork as

relationships. Being a volunteer can change lives and can lead oneself to a career path they never

Haski-Leventhal, D., & Bargal, D. (2008). The volunteer stages and transitions model: Organizational socialization of volunteers. Human Relations, 61(1), 67-102.

Foremost, managing volunteers differs from managing staff only to the extent of what the manager desires. In other words, there is no difference unless the manager creates differences designed for specific purposes and goals. Mangers need the ability to motivate volunteers and employees to work together to reach common goals (Brudney & Meijs, 2014). Hence, managers use their abilities to organize, evaluate, supervise, and facilitate those around them – whether it is staff or volunteers – to reach the organization’s goals and occupational commitment (Claiborne, Auerbach, Lawrence, Liu, McGowan, Fernendes, & Magnano, 2011; Patti, 2008).

Volunteerism is a powerful way to reduce crime, and to interact with potential consumers. Also, if crime is a concern, businesses should work with local law enforcement to