Be clear about the roles / help you need
The most important piece of planning you can do prior to recruitment is devising roles for volunteers. Don't forget that a role could involve just one task. Not only do you need to be clear on what you want volunteers to do in each role, but you also have to think through the particular skills and qualities needed to carry out the tasks involved.
Clarity about each volunteer roll - and the kind of people required to fill them – will help you determine how to set about finding your volunteers. The way you recruit the volunteer to design A group website or run your social media will be very different from finding someone suitable to help run the beavers or take minutes at the executive committee meeting.
Clearly defined roles are helpful for volunteers too. They want to know beforehand what they are getting involved in, and what is going to be expected of them. a friendly short well written role description will also reassure them that your group is well organised and a great place to be part of and you're not going to waste their time. And clearly ‘laying things on the line’ will help potential volunteers decide whether to offer to help out.
The process of writing down each volunteer role can also be very helpful in assessing the risks attached to people volunteering. Whether these are risks to which volunteers are exposed in the course of their role or risks that they might themselves present to your group. You cannot undertake an effective risk assessment process without well written role descriptions, it is only when you have thought through, in detail, the actions that volunteers are likely to take in the course of their role that you can pinpoint the potential areas of risk to your group.
A volunteer role or task description helps to clarify exactly what you need a volunteer to do and what the boundaries are, for example in terms of time, geography or limit of responsibility. Write or revise volunteer roles (or tasks), descriptions for each volunteer role you are looking to recruit.
Not all of the issues listed below will be relevant to all roles/tasks, but the list will serve as a checklist when writing your role descriptions and to make sure that nothing gets overlooked.
- What do you want me to do?
- What does that involve?
- What responsibilities will I have?
- Why does the task matter?
- What might it be helpful to know to carry out the role or task?
- Who will take responsibility for supporting me?
- Who will I be working with?
- Where do I fit in to the groups structure?
- What time will I need to give?
- Is this set hours & days or is it flexible?
- Where will I volunteer?
- What commitment do you want from me? (estimated min/max time commitment per week/month/term/year)
- What equipment is available?
- Am I required to complete a DBS?
- Are expenses paid?
- Am I required to wear uniform?
- Is training mandatory? (yes or no)
- If yes, what is required?
- What will I get out of volunteering?
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Why ‘role’ descriptions?
As you probably realised ‘role descriptions’ for volunteers are cousins of ‘job descriptions’ which are given to employees, (although not usually written in the same style). For a while the term ‘job description’ was used with volunteers as well, but the term has recently fallen out of favour, as it blurs the line between paid employment and volunteering commitments, which can be confusing and, in a very small number of cases legally problematic. In the main, volunteering organisations have therefore sought an alternative term and ‘role description’ is one of the most commonly used. However, you can call it what you like volunteering specification, task description, volunteer briefing, role definition etc. The thing to remember is what you call it is much less important than how you use it to help you plan, communicate your needs and find more adult help.
Some people have concerns about giving volunteers defined roles on paper. They worry that volunteering could be seen as or become too formal or too inflexible, and that people might be scared off. These concerns are not unrealistic, but they are not an effective argument against not having them. Rather it highlights the issue on how they are written and used or whether or not your scout group is prepared to adapt and change a person's role overtime as the need requires and these things are easy to overcome.
In fact, the biggest drawback in using role descriptions is the time it can take to produce them. The key question however is whether you can afford not to spend a little time writing role descriptions, as the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks - the time it takes to write them will be far less than the time it could take with solving problems caused by their absence.
Role descriptions are far, the single biggest building block you can use in creating your recruitment plans.
There are, of course, occasions where some volunteer tasks do not merit a full role description. Where volunteers help with a one-off simple task- such as organising a sponsored walk- a full role description would be overkill. However, you still should think about how you pass on instructions and guidance to such volunteers.