What Volunteers Need to Know

Have you wondered what volunteers need to know in order to do their job with confidence and integrity? What, as leaders, must we provide to our volunteers in order to envision them yet enable them to feel secure in their service to clients? How do we lead gracefully but still have standards for our volunteer program and ministry?

Years ago at a Pregnancy Center conference, Lorne Sanny who at that time was the director of the Navigators, spoke at our conference. His talks focused on leadership and much of his talk has resonated with me ever since. Dr. Sanny stared his service with The Navigators in 1956 and served for 30 years before he retired. Dr. Sanny went to be with Jesus in March of 2005.

He taught ­­that the people we are leading need to know four things:

• What am I supposed to do?
• Will you let me do it?
• Will you help me when I need it?
• Will you let me know how I am doing?

Let’s take a look at each of these questions in light of your work with volunteers. These questions apply to volunteers as well as paid employees, especially as most of the Pregnancy Center workforce is made up of volunteers.

What am I supposed to do?

This question speaks to several things:

1. The quality of your job descriptions
   • Do you have written, detailed job descriptions for every volunteer position in your organization?
   • Does the job description explain the duties and expectations of the position clearly?
   • Are the training (basic and in-service) requirements explained in detail?
   • Are volunteers told when and how evaluations will be performed?
   • Does the job description identify who is their go-to person on staff should they need help?
     
2. How clearly you articulate the expectations of the volunteer positions during a pre-training interview
   • Do you hand out job descriptions during your pre-training volunteer interview?
   • You can’t always count on people reading or paying attention to what you see as important in a job description. What is important and essential to you? Emphasize those things during your interview.
   • What kind of questions do you ask during the interview that will help you and the potential volunteer to determine if they are right for the position? We have all suffered from training potential volunteers only for either of us to find out the position did not align with their giftedness or abilities or passions.
3. How well you hold volunteers accountable to the job they have agreed to perform?
   • Accountability is a tricky situation in volunteer programs. It is important to know what your expectations of volunteers in various positions are and how you will hold them accountable for what they are signing up for.
   • How many days, hours per week or month are expected? What happens if they cannot fulfill those hours?
   • What kind of training – basic, on-the-job, and in-service training is expected? What happens if they continually do not fulfill these requirements?

Will you let me do it?

1. How do you ease your volunteers into visiting with clients?
2. Who in your organization are the best people for newly-trained volunteers to shadow? Who in able to show new volunteers how what they learned in the basic training applies in real-life situations?
3. When and how do you release them to try it on their own?

Will you help me when I need it?

1. Does every volunteer know who they can go to if and when they need help?
   • An organizational chart shared during training as well as on the job descriptions is great for this, especially if you are a larger Center with a variety of paid staff.
2. How do you evaluate volunteers without being in “the room” with them right away?
   • Follow-up with volunteers after their initial sessions with clients. Ask clear concrete questions that reinforce what they were taught in basic training. Use the list of the Seven Fundamentals.
   • Read their client documentation notes
   • Ask them to use the self-evaluation sheet found in the Equipped to Serve Training manual.
3. What kind of notes do you keep on each volunteers strengths and weaknesses that can help you engage with them when they need help? It is helpful to keep these types of notes in their personnel files.

Will you let me know how I am doing?

1. What are your plans for yearly volunteer evaluations?
   • Are they conducted on the yearly anniversary of when a volunteer started?
   • Is there an evaluation season or time of year where everyone gets evaluated?
   • Do volunteers get a chance to give feedback/evaluations to the staff?  When? How?
2. Who conducts these evaluations?
3. What should the criteria be for evaluations?
   • The evaluation should be based on the volunteer’s job description and expected levels of the skills taught during training
4. How will you create the time or a system that would enable this to happen?
   • How can you create time in a staff members schedule to enable this happen? If you do not make a plan for evaluating volunteers they are likely not to happen.
   • I like to look at this process with volunteers more as coaching than strict evaluation.
   • This is the best way to keep your organization healthy. Coaching gives everyone a chance to be encouraged & praised in the areas they are doing well and look at areas that might need some improvement in a hopefully non-threatening environment.

I will go into more depth and develop a few helpful worksheets as I delve deeper into these topics in the coming months.

Please let me know where you might need help in these areas. Drop me an email or use the contact form.

Thanks for all you do and how you love on your volunteers!