Managing and Leading Volunteer Personnel

IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure you post your entry in text within the forum itself. An MS Word document simply uploaded to the forum is not sufficient to inspire the class dialogue we need.

In this week's assigned reading we were introduced to the special "art" of managing volunteers. Before we go any further on this matter, we need to get a foundation established on how managing paid workers differs from that of volunteer workers in supplement to what you read in the book. Please reference the table below where I have listed some of typical differences between the administration of paid vs. volunteer workers:

Typical Differences Between Paid Workers and Volunteer Workers
Worker Variable	Paid Worker	Unpaid Worker (volunteer)
Compensation	Yes	No
Health, Retirement, & Misc. Benefits	Part-Time or Full-Time	Part-Time
Job Description	Well-Defined Role or Position-Specific	Diversified Job Roles/Functions
Reason for Working	To Earn a Living	Have a Passion for the Cause
How Best Managed	Seek Appreciation Yet be Clear on Expectation	Seeking a Sense of Responsibility
Communication Nuances	Respectful Yet Accountable	Highly Collaborative

To build on this, go a bit further now into the volunteer management concept by reading this:https://www.fidelitycharitable.org/content/dam/fc-public/docs/resources/the-role-of-volunteering-in-philanthropy.pdfLinks to an external site.

**I regret I cannot remove this expired video content. However, please scroll down for others.

Watch this video on managing volunteers - should we treat them as staff, donors or free labor?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTWqewAgS44Links to an external site.

Now consider this video on how volunteers arebestinfluenced into acting and/or reacting favorably in a charitable effort of function:

Now that we have a basis of understanding for how managing volunteers differs from managing paid workers, we can move-on to dissect howhumanmotivation works which is appropriate being that both volunteers and paid workers are, indeedhuman.

Consider this; when we take money, benefits, perks, etc. out of the workermotivation equation (volunteers receive no payment), the worker'sdesireto perform the job is more important than their materialneedto have the job. Can a manager scold a volunteer for not showing-up on time to perform a certain job and threaten termination of the volunteer? If this were to happen does a volunteer have concerns about his/her livelihood? Would you work for free donating your free time and energy to tolerate someone who scolds you as if you were being paid?

To gain volunteer adherence to a non-profit manager's direction, volunteers must be INFLUENCED or LED to in the manager's direction. Volunteerism, by design, does not line-up with typical ideas of material exchange (money) between an employer and an employee. So how does the concept of leadership (influence processes) differ from the concept of management.

A leader does not a manager make, just as a manager does not make a leader. When one is designated as a manager, they are not somehow miraculously transformed into a good "leader" but essentiallydraftedinto a role. Theymay or may nothave sufficient interpersonal skills needed to perform the leadership role. Why is this? The confusion here tends to be tied to a misunderstanding of what amanager doesandwhat a leader is.

Managers, by necessity, tend to beprocess-focusedand typically rely on administrative power to gain compliance whereas leaders are morefocused on peopleand seek to influence worker attitudes and performance in a certain direction. While good management keeps the formal structure of an organization intact both financially and legally, it is quality leadership that stimulates an environment where thingsare well done.Management is more of a science, yet leadership is more of an art.In the workplace, worker behaviors are a direct product of howmotivatedordemotivatedworkers are to act, react, and ultimately perform at highorlow levels based upon how they are influenced to do so by a leader.

Remember, above all, that whenever a worker feels forced into doing something, they are NOT being led but simply being coerced. There isnosuch thing asforcedinfluence in the art of leadership. Simply put, if a workerwantsto perform beyondwhat is necessaryto merely keep their job, they will bemore likelydo so withlesssupervision,work efficiently, andtend to require less money. By contrast, a worker whodoesnotwantto perform beyondwhat is necessaryto merely keep their job will likely requiremoresupervision,workinefficiently, and likelyfocus heavily on the extrinsic rewards of money and benefitsto keep on the job or leave.

It's also important to keep in mind thatboth management and leadership are necessary for ANY organization to function and be sustained. Without management monitoring and controlling the infrastructure of the organization, leaders would have nothing to lead because the organization would simply collapse by a lack of resources, financial failure, legal challenges, or any other number of alternative bureaucratic threats. Management and leadership initiatives cannot be set at odds with each other but instead practiced in tandem. With all that manager vs leader groundwork established, we can now move into this week's conversation on the topic of influence and motivation. Please watch the video embedded below which gives you a primer into how human motivation works and you will take it from there:

Your Week #10 assignment is...

• Compare/Contrast Management of Paid vs. Unpaid Workers (a.k.a. volunteers):Using content from the assigned readings, selected videos and other credible references, create your own summary of how managing paid workers differs from managing unpaid volunteer workers.
• Personal Experience: Give us an example of some kind of labor you performed that didn't involve money or some other type of self material gain other than your passion for a certain charitable cause. Tell us how you became interested in the volunteer activity and the cause you were contributing towards.
• Personal Observations: At a personal opinion level, describe how you would feel if you were donating your valuable time to a charitable cause yet were treated with threatening and coercive behavior from an administrator. Would you stick with the cause and just "take it" or would you abandon the work altogether in that type of environment?
• Theoretical application: Please seek comparisons to what has been empirically proven in published research. To do this, go into the academic data bases and lookup information on how managing and leading volunteer workers in non-profits may differ from for-profit contexts. Use what you find to make recommendations for future practice paving the way for better volunteer worker outcomes and accomplishments. Please cite the sources referenced per current APA guidelines.
• Summary: Provide a summary of your post including a link between the main idea of each paragraph with the evidence you used to support your ideas and/or recommendations made. For assistance on how to write a good summary, visithttps://depts.washington.edu/owrc/Handouts/How%20to%20Write%20a%20Summary.pdfLinks site..