Hot
Topic Archive
March
2006
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A
sure recipe for success
By
OzVPM Director Andy
Fryar
Last
month's OzVPM Hot Topic asked the question
of whether or not we have over-regulated the practice
of volunteer program management. The essay elicited
a great deal of comment and has spawned several thoughts
for this month's column.
In
thinking through the subject a little more, I decided
to start this month's Hot Topic by sharing with you
a very famous, yet hard to find recipe.
Ingredients
2
cups flour
3
eggs
1
oz kindness
½
cup selflessness
2
heaped cups of altruism (raw and non pretentious if
you can find it)
¾
cup reciprocity
1
pinch disobedience
3
cups of water
Instructions
Pour
all ingredients into a large mixing bowl and combine
well. Cover bowl with wrap and seal with red tape.
Let mixture sit for several days. Now place onto an
oven tray making small equal sized balls of mixture,
and bake under heavy screening lights. Scrutinize
contents carefully to ensure it contains no nuts.
Once they have finished baking, place into individually
sealed bags and store in an airtight container.
To
use, simply microwave pack for 30 seconds.
Of
course if you haven't already guessed, this is the
age old and fabled recipe for instant, microwavable
volunteers - for those times unrealistic department
managers come calling and demand a few dozen new volunteers
by tomorrow morning!
~
Simply whack a few in the microwave and voila! ~
If
only it were that easy!
In
the same way there is no such thing as a recipe to
create an instant volunteer, there is also no such
thing as a 'standard' volunteer - yet how often do
we narrow down the complex process of recruiting volunteers
into a recipe of sorts?
Think
about it.
Simply
take one interested community member, routinely interviewing
them using a standard set of application questions
and ask them to complete copious amounts of regulated
paperwork. Screen thoroughly, undertake reference
checks and finally, have them undertake training and
orientation!
OK
so maybe I am being a little cynical, but the truth
of the matter is that volunteer management actually
does not lend itself very well to following a strict
formula. Our profession deals with people of all age
groups, genders and cultural backgrounds who bring
with them a broad range of interests, skills and life
experiences. As such, all the wonderful texts that
have been written over the years about sound volunteer
management practices (including my own) should only
ever be used as a guide in developing your program
and adapted to the suit particularities of the context
in which volunteers are working within your own setting.
Let's
take another look at our recipe analogy.
If
I follow a recipe for chocolate cake to the letter,
there is one thing that is certain - I'm going to
wind up making a chocolate cake. Nothing surer!
There
are however two problems associated with following
a recipe and expecting success.
Firstly,
there is no guarantee that my chocolate cake will
be perfect. In fact if your cooking adventures are
anything like mine, no two cakes ever seem to turn
out the same! One will be soft and fluffy, while the
next, having supposedly sprung from the same process,
is more representative of a lump of concrete than
a sweet delicacy! Why? Well the quality of the final
product will also depend on a number of external factors
such as oven temperature, the quality of the raw products
used and the accuracy of the oven timer. However the
product is still (hopefully) discernable as a chocolate
cake.
In
the same way, stringently following a volunteer induction
process to the letter of the law will reap
you volunteers - no doubt about it. But at what cost
to our programs do they arrive? Are they all at the
same 'standard', or does the process mess with some
of our new recruits right from the start? More importantly,
have you ever stopped to ponder what sort of volunteer
you are trying to 'create' in the first place and
asked if this is indeed the final outcome you are
achieving through using the procedures you have adopted?
Now
don't get me wrong - processes are great. But if you
ever watched a good cook in the kitchen, they know
how to 'work' a recipe for success every time. Where
the recipe says 2 cups of flour, they'll instinctively
add 2 ½, they'll taste the mix and add just a little
more salt or sugar. Better still, they'll take a bunch
of raw ingredients and no recipe, and still make a
masterpiece from nothing. The trick of course is that
they know their art, back their judgement and have
confidence in their abilities.
In
the same way I believe we need to start to think a
little more about ways we can vary our recruitment
and induction processes - tweak them if you like -
to gain a greater level of tailored success with every
new volunteer. I'm certainly not suggesting we do
anything to put program clients at risk, but what
use is there in a local animal shelter or tree planting
group following exactly the same process as the local
battered women's refuge?
The
second problem associated with following a volunteer
management 'recipe' is that no matter how varied our
chocolate cake recipes may be we only ever make chocolate
cakes!
Allow
me to flog the cooking example to death one last time.
What if I decide I want to hold a tea party or open
a bakery? Nothing but chocolate cake would soon lose
its appeal. I'd need to start fishing around for a
banana cake recipe or carrot slice or biscuits or
scones. I may even want to lash out and make some
savoury dishes - spring rolls or a quiche. These will
all require me to adopt my basic cooking techniques
and apply them in different ways with different ingredients.
Again,
if we transpose this analogy to a volunteer management
setting it is easy to see that using the same method
may not allow for the diversity we may require in
order to increase the effectiveness of our programs.
In
brief, maybe it's time we started to think more about
what's going to work best for our individual programs.
Time we tailored the volunteer management 'recipe'
to suit our style and needs. Time we stopped relying
so much on having 'one particular' system by which
to recruit our team members.
The
truth is simple - 'One size does not fit all!'
As
volunteer management professionals we need to remember
that we are not just facilitators of volunteer involvement.
We are specialists in our field, and like a good cook,
we also need to know and understand how to work best
with a wide range of individuals to get the best out
of them for the benefits of both our programs and
the volunteers we are working with.
So
let's hear what you think?
- Do you agree that we fall
into the trap of using a 'process' for volunteer
recruitment without often enough thinking about
what the results are that we want to achieve in
the first place?
- Are there ways to get around
this?
- Do you feel comfortable
working outside the parameters of established boundaries?
- Do you have stories of success
to share?
It's
not too late to...
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to this month's Hot Topic
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send your reply to response@ozvpm.com
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- 06 OzVPM.
You may reproduce this Hot Topic in part or in full
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