The 3 Rs: Recruit, Retain, Reward Volunteers

Leading & managing volunteers can be very fulfilling, but it also comes with some notable challenges. Even the best planned volunteering projects can struggle to attract and retain volunteers for the long term, leading to the need for repeated rounds of recruitment and the potential for burn-out in those volunteers who do remain.

What do you need to include in a volunteer induction? How do you make it visually appealing? How do you value your volunteers, recognise they have other commitments, give them a voice? Have you considered moving volunteer induction online, or providing a combination of online and face to face? We will look at good practice and how we ensure we are being proactive and not reactive to our volunteers.

Sometimes managing & leading volunteer teams can present us with unique challenges that can be difficult to overcome. Issues like: Volunteers who have come into conflict with each other in a way that is damaging team morale Volunteer teams who dislike & resist changes that the organisation wants to make Volunteers who are not performing well but who are unwilling to step back A volunteer who has clashed with a service user in a way that might damage the organisation’s reputation may arise and need your immediate attention without there being any clear guidance on how best to resolve them. This workshop will explain various strategies, communication styles, and conflict management skills that will help you resolve these types of difficulties. We will then explore some real case studies to think about how to apply these problem-solving techniques in practice.

Can you identify potential risks in your volunteering roles and projects? Do you know how assess these risks and manage them? During this session, we will explore these issues and more, including why we need to assess risk and how volunteer managers can implement this process within their volunteer programme.