SITE

by Jodi Freedman

Many times, I have had the conversation with staff and with fellow board members about whether or not a volunteer can be fired. I find it frustrating how many people believe the answer is no. I often hear people talk about the philosophical dilemma “They are giving of their time, who are we to say that it is no longer acceptable or necessary?” I believe that if volunteers aren’t treated equally to employees, and seen as your non-paid work force with similar guidelines, then you have put no value on your volunteers. Steve McCuley states “By denying that there is a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ way to do a volunteer job, one conveys the impression that the volunteer work done is irrelevant and insignificant. An agency which does not care enough about the work done by volunteers to enforce quality communicates to other volunteers that the agency believes their own work to be meaningless.” For more of Steve’s input on the subject, see his article “How to Fire a Volunteer and live to Tell About It.”

It is not a fun task, by any means, but letting volunteers go due to poor performance, poor attendance or a change in the organization’s needs lets everyone know how important the volunteers are. Of course, to do this, volunteer managers must have proper guidelines in place. It really always goes back to proper documentation. A new volunteer should be orientated, given a position description and a handbook, and properly supervised. All of this should be documented so that all involved knows it was completed. If you have laid out the rules ahead of time, then termination shouldn’t come as a surprise. I have often found that when I do let a volunteer go, that volunteer is as relieved as I am. Perhaps a person agreed to volunteer and then discovered that it wasn’t what he expected or that she wasn’t comfortable after all. Having an honest and open conversation often allows that volunteer to “save face” and leave on good terms with the organization.

Letting a volunteer go also signals to staff that volunteers are held to strict guidelines and are expected to make staff’s lives easier, not more difficult!

I am not saying that a volunteer should be let go without some effort to make the situation work. Steps may include relocating to a new department, getting a new task to do, coaching, or a new supervisor. So, what do you all think? Is it ok to fire a volunteer? And if yes, how many times should the volunteer manager try to make it work?

Jodi Freedman is a Major Gifts Specialist at the Maine Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Managing Performance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.