There are two things I absolutely know about volunteers-
#1. If you want people to serve with you, you must be more than willing to serve them.
#2. Volunteers are not serving the tech guys, they are serving God and that's the way they should be treated.
The rest is all really muddy to me.
This past couple of weeks have been filled with talks about volunteers. We had an announcement from the pulpit requesting volunteers. It went better than anyone expected. We had 12 people say they wanted to help. This may not seem like a lot to some, but for us it is and I am so excited at some things that may be possible that never were before (like going to a service and being able to sit with my wife).Throughout the many discussions our team has had, one thing keeps coming up-- Do you make a training program and run volunteers through it or do you get volunteers and cater every single aspect of training to each one personally?
CLARIFICATION: I DO NOT ASSUME I AM RIGHT OR WRONG. I DO NOT ASSUME THE SAME OF MY CO-WORKERS. I AM MERELY LOOKING FOR INPUT (and I'm seeing if writing it out can help me sort through things).
Let me explain a little more. You can go about it in a very systematic way. You can set up a program where you lay out the necessary weekly time commitments, have a very structured class (set date and time and set curriculum) that everyone goes through and then schedule them according to slots that meed to be filled.
Or you can go through a very personal approach, asking the volunteer what they can commit to, tailor the teaching to exactly what they want to learn (on a date and time that is more convenient to them and maybe not you, with not set curriculum) and then schedule them according to what fits their schedule best.
I have no idea what is right, or wrong....or if there is a great mix between the two that keeps everyone happy. And that is where you come in. If you have a second, help me out and respond to any or all of the questions below.
1. How do you approach training volunteers?
2. What is the #1 thing to remember about volunteering?
3. What is the #1 thing to not do regarding volunteers? (extra points awarded for the best story)
Thank you for you help, I do really appreciate it!
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2 comments:
We will try this again. I don't think you will be able to do a one size fits all for your volunteers. Hopefully the vols. have been screened and have some aptitude for the tech world, if not, that should be done first. ON the training front, I think you should do a two prong approach. First give the general overview that covers the things that are common to all the jobs. Then you will need to break up into groups or singles to do more detailed training for the specific tasks. You migh also look at pairing up a person that is strong in certain skills and someone opposite and weak in those skills. As they work through problems together, they will help each other and in the end learn even more. Let me know if you would like to discuss any of this further. -Scott-
Hi, Bryan.
After 9 years of asking the same questions you are asking about training, and going around the block and back, my personal conclusion is that training classes are not generally the best approach for new volunteers in this arena.
Why? A few things: 1. It's often too much for someone completely new to consume. They forget a ton, and then they're sent off to serve. 2. This is a "doing" ministry, so it's hard to learn it when you don't actually get to do it. 3. The logistics of explaining a single piece of equipment to 12 people at the same time can be challenging.
What we've opted to do instead is to have our volunteers train our volunteers. We put someone on a team, and they learn as they work alongside people on that team. They learn that role from either someone already doing the role or from the team leader or from everyone at the same time.
This is so easy to do. For me as the leader, that is.
It is also difficult to do. The team sizes and time commitments have to allow for enough extra clock time for the training to happen. In other words, if everyone is time-crunched and stressed out, the training just won't happen. We've had to extend everyone's time commitment a little and set this training component as part of the expectation of all ongoing volunteers.
We also have several positions that I somewhat secretly call "trainee" positions. In other words, they are roles that are not absolutely essential for the team to function. If no one is in that role, the rest of the team can fill in the gap. However, when we have someone there, they can learn slowly and learn a lot. Within 4-6 months, even someone with no background at all can EASILY jump into one of the essential roles.
This requires patience, but we've found that it is more effective than sending everyone through a set of training classes.
But that's just our experience, for waht it's worth.
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