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Volunteer-Staff Relations

© Ella Marin

Volunteer efforts are worth millions of dollars each year. Some nonprofit organizations could not exist without volunteers, while others would have to cut back on the services they provide. Selfless acts of service help strengthen communities and touch the lives of people in need. Despite all this, volunteer and staff relations are often rocky at best.

Resentment, suspicion, and disrespect are, unfortunately, common problems. Their root almost always lies in one cause: misunderstanding. Tensions can sore quickly and the situation sour for all involved. The outcome, however, can easily be avoided through preventive techniques. Examine what issues exist in your volunteer program, or could potentially exist, if the program is still up in the air, and use the power of learning and understanding to cleanse your organization of such problems.

Staff
What comes as a surprise to many volunteer coordinators or program directors is the lack of enthusiasm, or even apprehension, that the regular staff view volunteer programs with. They may perceive volunteers as job-threatening or time-consuming. These issues need to be addressed before they are manifested as poor paid/volunteer staff relations.

Before you start a volunteer program, or if your current one is experiencing problems, hold a staff orientation. Explain what you see as the role of volunteers in the organization, and ask for feedback. Outline the process of obtaining a volunteer (i.e., filling out a job description). Make sure the staff understand the time frame needed to do this, to avoid having them ask for the impossible. (One Tuesday, the fledgling volunteer center I worked for received a request for 50 volunteers to help with a banquet being held that Thursday. It's hard enough to get just a few volunteers on such short notice-especially without causing resentment.)

The staff need to be reminded that volunteers are trying to do the organization a favor and should face minimum hassle when helping. A great gesture, particularly in regard to tedious tasks, is to work alongside a volunteer. That eliminates the common feeling that volunteers do for free what others won't do for pay. Another good idea is to give volunteers enough autonomy that they feel free to complete a task in their own way, but not so much that they don't feel comfortable asking questions.

Besides trying to show the staff a bit of the volunteer's perspective, it is equally important to discuss their own concerns. A common complaint is that volunteers take a lot of time out of the day-asking questions, needing to know how to complete tasks or where to find things, etc. The best way to address this problem will differ from organization to organization, but emphasizing the "value added" of volunteers helps.