Volunteer Recruitment Handbook

Transcription

1 Volunteer Recruitment Handbook

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3 Dear Colleague, WRVS has been delivering services through volunteers since 1938 but how we find suitable people is changing all the time and we need to be able to attract the interest of different groups in different ways. We have put together this guide as a set of practical tools to help you. Even if you and your team have been doing this successfully for years, we hope that there are ideas here which can help you to use the opportunities your colleagues have developed elsewhere. We have also put in some templates of standard letters, adverts and news releases to save you reinventing these and they have been saved as documents on the enclosed disc so that you can top and tail them to use locally. Feel free to be creative, though, and if you find that something works really well, please let us know so that we can keep up with best practice. And please also tell us if you find that anything we say could be improved. We know that managers in WRVS have too much to do and not enough time to do it but volunteer recruitment is core to your role, so the first idea is to step back and put this pack in the hands of some of your volunteers and ask them to develop then deliver a plan for you not long ago everything WRVS did was done by volunteers people like a challenge! Recruiting new volunteers can be a lot of fun don t keep it all to yourself! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact the volunteer recruitment team on Good luck The Volunteering Team

4 Pack contents A guide to running a successful volunteer recruitment campaign. If you stick to this plan and work through the steps your campaign is much more likely to bring in the new volunteers that you need Guides to help you to target particular groups of people Sample letters, press releases and letters to editors. These are to help you create your own letters and press releases containing local information. The format of these documents will help get you started. You ll find hard copies at the end of each section and all are on the disc which you can download to your computer and tailor to suit your needs Examples of volunteer role profiles. Every potential volunteer should be given a role profile so that they know what will be expected of them. Again these are just examples of some of our more general volunteering opportunities, but use this format to develop your own if you have new roles available. These are also included on the disc. 1

5 How to run a successful recruitment campaign Pull together a team find a small number of your volunteers who can be dedicated to the task. Or how about recruiting some graduates who are looking for good work experience? See sample role profile. Check with your SDM about any other services in the locality you might work with. Does anyone nearby have too many volunteers or some who are having to travel a long way to reach their service? Have a meeting with the team to agree on who is going to do what and by when. Write down an outline plan (see Planning ). A campaign has to have a definite start date and a definite end date. Work out how long each stage is going to take, allowing time for applications, interviews and the admin processes. Remember there are times of the year when a campaign is not likely to succeed and times when it is likely to be better, for example January April, September October. Agree on how the team will report to you and how often. Be clear about what you want to be involved with personally. Ask the team to turn the outline into a detailed plan. 2

6 Planning Define success (what should the campaign deliver in detail and by when?) and more volunteers (this doesn t really say anything. What do you want them for? What services will they enhance?). Check amongst your current team what do they think would help most? is there any flexibility about swapping rotas or extending roles? many volunteers leave WRVS because we fail to provide the challenge they are looking for. What talent do you already have that is not being stretched? is there anybody who is likely to want to move on / give up? is there anybody who is travelling too far to come to you who might be better placed in a WRVS service closer to home? does the current team all look the same in terms of age, gender, race? Do you need to try to diversify? How will your service change in the year ahead? Everything we do is being joined up by 2014 and change will not stop then! Put these together to define what you really need from this campaign Get in touch with the volunteer recruitment team at Cardiff Gate To get your vacancies onto the various websites asap. Did you know over 70% of our volunteers already come to us this way? And we use other volunteering recruitment websites? And it s faster! To get their help with mailings, flyers, posters, ideas, etc Produce role profiles for your new volunteering opportunities. Use the examples in this pack to see the style / format. Be creative! Everything that is in your own job is probably being done somewhere in the UK by WRVS volunteers. We want to create opportunities for graduates to gain experience Many retired people have huge reservoirs of skills we could use including professional skills teaching, accounting, IT etc Volunteering is seen as a way of helping people mid-career who want to try something different Young people can learn from your team and can bring new ideas Stretch the existing roles. Is there anything that could be added on to make work more interesting for some of your current team? 3

7 Find volunteers who are willing to take recruitment as their task (example of a role profile in this folder) Use the local press to place stories that will help (example of a press release included but a picture is best) Contact your local Rotary Club and ask them to help with the recruitment campaign (example of a letter attached but a phone call is better) Think about a targeted campaign, for example to enlist help from schools or to find graduates or college students to find people who want to begin their move back to the workplace or who want to change their career path (examples included in this folder) Organise a system to handle volunteer enquiries As soon as someone gets in touch, the team MUST be ready to bring them in to chat, to explore how they might help, to let them see what we do. Make a plan there could be a lot of calls! (See Informal interview ). Activities Included in this folder are guides to help you target particular groups of people who may be interested in certain volunteering opportunities. Use these guides to help plan your activity. Here are some more general ideas: Word of mouth lots of new volunteers are recruited by friends and family members who are volunteers themselves Write to local organisations such as Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, WI, Townswomen s Guilds and churches of all denominations Local volunteer centres are a good source of new people. Make sure they know who you are and where your service is. Also ensure that they have up-to-date information about vacancies. They might be able to help you by getting involved in your campaign for a limited period of time Use any available websites to promote the campaign e.g. local councils, hospitals etc Offer to give talks to local community groups about WRVS they are often on the lookout for speakers Hold recruitment events at local supermarkets, garden centres, libraries, bingo halls there are many opportunities to do this. Just think of places where people gather. But be aware that you often have to book these venues well in advance Borrow an exhibition kit from WRVS Cardiff Gate to create an attractive and eye catching stand 4

8 Hold an open day, perhaps to coincide with a long service award event. Invite people to come along to help celebrate but also to find out more about volunteering with WRVS Get to know the people at your local Job Centre Plus. Part of their role is to encourage people who are not working to take up volunteering as a first step Use your local media. Get to know staff at your local/regional newspaper or free community newspapers. Try to get free editorial space in these papers by sending out a news release to publicise your campaign or a particular event. Local radio stations are also keen to get involved in local community activity and so might help to promote your campaign Remember that potential volunteers will come directly to you as a result of your campaign but they may also have contacted our recruitment team at WRVS Cardiff Gate. Whichever way they come to you, one of the key things is to act as quickly as you can to ensure that they don t lose interest or think that we have lost interest in them. So arrange an informal interview as soon as possible after they express an interest. Informal interview This process is not the same as the kind of formal interview that someone might have if they are going for a paid job. The atmosphere should be relaxed and friendly. The purpose is for the potential volunteer to find out if the volunteering opportunity you have is what they are looking for and equally for you to decide if they are the right person for the role. Make sure that it is held somewhere quiet where you will not be interrupted by people or telephones. Use the volunteer application form to guide you through the meeting. Never give out application forms for people to take away, complete and send back or send them out to potential volunteers in the post. Our experience has shown us that it is likely that these will never be returned and a precious volunteer is lost. Talk to the applicant about your service and the specific role you have available. Give them the volunteer role profile that you have developed and talk them through it so they understand what we are looking for. Ask them about why they want to volunteer and what they hope to get out of their volunteering. This way both of you will be able to decide if it is a good match. At this point it is also a good idea to check the days and times when they are available. Help the applicant to fill out the volunteer application form and complete a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB/CRBS) application if it is required for the role. Check out the personal identification that the person has brought with them. It is important that we can confirm that the person is who they say they are. If you are happy with the way that the informal interview has gone and feel that it will be a good match you can tell the applicant that you would be happy to have them join the service, subject to receipt of satisfactory references and CRB/CRBS check (if applicable). 5

9 How to say no If you have misgivings about the applicant s suitability for the role please don t tell them that everything is alright. Once the paper work is processed by the volunteer database team at WRVS Cardiff Gate and the welcome pack is sent out, it is then very difficult to tell a volunteer that we do not think the role is right for them. If you are not convinced that the person is right for the role then simply tell them that you will be seeing other people for the role which has generated quite a lot of interest and so you will write to them to let them know the outcome. If after having time to consider the matter you do not wish to recruit this potential volunteer then write to them explaining that they have been unsuccessful. But remember someone who has taken the trouble to offer to volunteer will need to be given a reason why you don t want them after all. These reasons are more acceptable to the individual if they are about skills or numbers of volunteers or the working pattern. If the role involves face to face contact with vulnerable older people, it will require a CRB/CRBS disclosure. You should make the applicant aware that criminal record checks can take some time to come back to us and so there may be some delay. If the applicant decides that your service is not quite what they were looking for, tell them about other WRVS services in the area. Perhaps one of them will be more appropriate. If all else fails and there is nothing that WRVS can offer them, point the applicant in the direction of the local volunteer centre which will have information on volunteering opportunities available in other organisations. The paperwork Please make time to check all of the paperwork very carefully. One of the biggest causes of delay in our volunteer recruitment process is when forms are incomplete or incorrect. The volunteer database team then has to return these to you which takes time and is costly. Also make sure that the applicant is confident that their referees will reply promptly. This is another element that can cause delays in processing. Ideally you should try to obtain addresses for referees. This will save time and money for WRVS. Once you are happy that all of the paperwork is in order, send this off to the volunteer database team at Cardiff Gate. They will check the forms and if these are correct they will send off reference requests and CRB applications within 24 hours of receipt. If we don t get a reply to our request for references within 14 days the volunteer database team sends out a reminder. If this does not work they will go back to the potential volunteer to see if they can help speed things along. So you can see how delays occur. Once we send a CRB/CRBS application off to be processed we then have no control over how long this will take to be returned. Often it depends upon the individual circumstances of the potential volunteer. For example if they have moved house a few times, particularly 6

10 if those moves have been to different parts of the country, the disclosure result will take much longer. So that if two applications are sent on the same day, one might come back in a couple of weeks and the other could take very much longer. Getting your new volunteer started Once the volunteer database team have received the references and CRB check, and providing these are accepted, they will send out a welcome pack to the volunteer together with a letter which tells them that you will be in touch very shortly to discuss a start date. At the same time they will send a letter to you to say that the volunteer is now free to start and asking you to contact them. Please do this immediately so that your new volunteer feels welcomed and appreciated. Volunteers must not be allowed to start volunteering before clearance has been given by the team at Cardiff Gate. Evaluation Take time to reflect back on your recruitment campaign. What worked well, what didn t work? Is there anything different you could have done that might have been more successful? Did you get the number of volunteers that you had hoped? If not, are there other things in your area that you can try next time? All recruitment campaigns teach us something and this helps us to increase our success rate. If details change Remember, if details of any of your volunteers change please let the volunteer database team in Cardiff know as quickly as possible so that they can update their records. This might be a change of address, emergency contact details or perhaps someone is leaving. Help us to keep our records as up-to-date as possible. 7