Article Discussion: Managing Volunteers

I found an interesting article in an Austrian newspaper about the management of volunteers and how to combine volunteers and paid employees in one workplace. The article is called “Freiwilligenmanagement: Zahlungsmittel Anerkennung”, written by Claudia Dabringer, published in Die Presse.

The article cites managers of various volunteer-dependent organizations, such as the Caritas. Generally, it is said that the basic leadership principles for volunteers and paid employees are similar, but that there are quite a few management differences, such as the payment. Therefore, the managers suggest different trainings, seminars and workshops about strategic volunteer management, how to deal with volunteers or becoming a volunteer manager. (Dabringer 2010)

It is said that last year Austrians volunteered approximately 15 Million hours, which could be summed up as 425,000 full-time workers working 40 hours per week (Dabringer 2010). Therefore, the right and appropriate management of volunteers are of high importance. Volunteers and employees should be able to cooperate. According to Martin Lesky, responsible for the volunteers at Caritas in Tyrol in Austria, managers can learn quite a lot from their volunteers: (Dabringer 2010)

• Looking at the overall picture – keeping the organization’s philosophy and staff in mind at all times
• Personal Attributes – every volunteer is important, everybody can volunteer with their own personal skills and talents

I think the article is very interesting, in particular the part about what managers can learn from volunteers. Dealing with volunteers is sometimes quite challenging and in my opinion trainings and seminars on volunteer management are a great way of helping managers with this challenge. The cooperation between paid employees and un-paid volunteers can be difficult to coordinate, as volunteers often need different motivation and encouragement due to the fact that they do not have any monetary benefits from their work. Therefore, such workshops can help managers to learn about the right motivation and leadership of volunteers and I think that they are a great idea.

See you next week,

Bettina

Reference:

Dabringer, C. (2010). Freiwilligenmanagement: Zahlungsmittel Anerkennung. Die Presse (online). Available from: http://diepresse.com/home/karriere/karrierelounge/556124/index.do?from=suche.intern.portal [Accessed 7 April 2010]