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September
2004
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How
to win GOLD for your volunteer program!
by
Andy Fryar
Now
that the Olympic flame has been extinguished over
Athens, we can say farewell to the summer games for
another four years.
As
happened in Sydney , the community of Athens will
benefit from these games in many ways for years to
come - new world class sporting arenas, increased
tourism and of course a general sense of pride in
having hosted such a successful spectacle.
Volunteers
again played a huge part in the hosting of these Olympics.
Many thousands of people from all over the world converged
on Athens - paying their own way and receiving no
monetary reward - in an effort to help make the games
great. They were acknowledged by the President of
the IOC at the opening ceremony and as happened in
Sydney four years earlier (where volunteers contributed
more than 6 million hours to the success of the games!)
their efforts were feted by people the world over.
Let's
face it, being an Olympic volunteer is the hottest
volunteering 'gig' on the planet!
Putting
aside the glamour of it all for a few moments, let's
consider the logistics of running with such a large
volunteer program. Where do you even begin planning
something so massive? How do you establish a management
infrastructure that will work? How do you deal with
issues surrounding the recruitment of volunteers on
an international scale?
Let's
take Athens as an example. Firstly the organisers
had to whittle down 160,000 applications to a mere
45,000 individuals! Once that job was over, they had
to give consideration to the training, rostering,
orientating, recognition and coordination of the masses!
Furthermore, as the Director of an Olympic Games volunteer
program, you don't have the luxury of messing the
whole thing up and coming back to do it correctly
a week or two later! Every element must be planned
and implemented with precision, passion and of course
a smile --- and to their credit both Sydney and more
recently Athens both achieved this very result.
Laurie
Smith, gives a good insight into the logistics of
running an Olympic volunteer program in the foreword
of his book written about the Sydney volunteer experience
where he wrote;
".the
volunteer workforce was the size of a large country
town, bringing with it all the characteristics of
that number of people."
So
here comes the important question for us all - what
can WE learn from the organisation of volunteers involved
with the greatest show on earth?
There
are a number of things - so let me share just a few.
There
is no compromise for planning
I
can distinctly remember the first time I heard David
Brettell speak about the Sydney Olympic volunteer
program. On that occasion David, the man charged with
overseeing the Sydney volunteer program, was able
to clearly lay out every last detail about how the
Olympic volunteer program would operate - who would
be recruited, for what tasks and at what time. The
occasion was the National Volunteering Conference
in Launceston , Tasmania in the winter of 1996 - more
than four years before the first athletes would walk
into the stadium!
Let's
never forget the importance of sound planning for
new volunteer programs and positions, to ensure that
they are as successful as they can be.
Involve
volunteers in decision making
One
of the key factors to the success of Olympic volunteer
programs has been the early involvement of volunteers
in some of the planning and decision making. The Sydney
games called these early involvement volunteers 'pioneers'
- and utilised about 500 of them!
While
you'll probably want a few less bodies than that,
gaining volunteer input, validation and support at
an early stage in any new initiative you may be planning
can often mean the difference between something being
good or great!
Volunteer
'buy in' is critical
When
a sample of Athens Olympic volunteers were asked 'How
important do you consider the volunteers contribution
to the success of the Games to be?' , 92.4% replied
'extremely important' .
It is clear that Olympic volunteers understand the
unique position in which they are placed. It's a position
of trust, of responsibility and one filled with both
pride and passion.
In
fact, when asked the reason why the Sydney games were
so successful, David Brettell stated that;
"The
single most important reason lay in a decision made
by the great majority of the volunteers themselves
- and that decision was to do whatever they needed
to and whatever they could do to make it work. There
was no way they would have accepted failure.
Now
that may sound like a rather meaningless thing to
say but I want you to know that it WAS critical.
It was a calculated decision on their part. The
volunteers knew very well how big a commitment they
had taken on and how tough it would be at times.
Whatever we may have done to help them get over
the line, it was their own inner strength and determination
which really got them there. They accepted their
roles and responsibilities as ambassadors. They
knew how important their roles were to the success
of the Games and to the lasting perceptions of the
Sydney Games and of the Australian people. Sending
people home with a smile on their face and with
positive perceptions and memories was a message
we strongly conveyed in our training and which the
volunteers readily accepted."
In the same
way, we need to explore ways we can build a belief
and a passion in our own volunteers about the programs
that they work in. While these activities may not
be as high profile as the Olympic Games, the work
they do is often even more important than that undertaken
as a part of the sporting juggernaut that appears
every few years.
Consider how
future generations will benefit from volunteer environmental
projects or how volunteer badge sellers will one day
help to raise the funds that will find a cure for
cancer. Think about the role of palliative care volunteers
supporting people through the penultimate stages of
life or volunteers in the emergency services who regularly
deal with individuals experiencing the worst day of
their lives.
Ensuring your
team understands the impact that they make is a critical
factor in volunteer program success.
Create
a strong identity
One of the
hottest collector items at every Olympics is the uniform
worn by the volunteers. An Olympic volunteer outfit
is worn like a badge of honour and means a great deal
to each and every volunteer involved in the Games.
It not only shows the wearer is a volunteer, but it
demonstrates that the person wearing the uniform is
a part of the whole Olympic movement.
Consider the
identity volunteers have in your agency. Are they
made to feel an integral part of your organisation
or are they somehow stuck out on a limb? Creating
a strong identity within your volunteer team is important
for many reasons, including motivation, support and
greater retention.
Flexibility
I've already
mentioned that a large percentage of Athens volunteers
came from outside Greece . In fact around 5000 of
the 45000 team were from abroad (including 400 from
Australia) Clearly it was never going to be possible
to ask these people to front up in Athens for a face-to-face
interview and then ask them to return again at Olympic
time to undertake their duties, so a carefully worded
application form was developed and sent to all volunteer
applicants not located in Greece.
The lesson
here for many of us is that we need to be flexible
in the way we recruit volunteers to our own agencies.
For instance, if you only ever work Monday to Friday
from 9 - 5 and you receive a call from a potential
volunteer that can only come in for an interview in
the evenings or on a weekend - does that count them
out of your calculations?
Now
it's your turn
The above
are just a few obvious examples of what we can learn
from a volunteer spectacle as large as the Olympic
Games - why not share your own thoughts about the
Athens Olympics with us all?
Let's
hear what you think!
:
‘Living is giving: The Volunteer Experience’,
Laurie Smith, Playright Publishing Pty Ltd, Sydney,
NSW, 2000
ATHOC
volunteering survey 2004 conducted by MRB/Research
International/VPRC (March / April 04)
‘
The Sydney Olympic and Paralympic Games Volunteer
Program’, David Brettell, e-volunteerism article,
Volume 2, Issue 1, October – December 2001 (www.e-volunteerism.com)
Available for purchase through the OzVPM bookstore
at http://ozvpmbookstore.com/store/solo.php?fzg_navGrpBtn=99-021-E-2
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