Volunteer Manager Focus - Rashpal Saini

What did you do for volunteers’ week?

Volunteer week was a chance to shine a spotlight on some exceptional volunteers, including one who received an award in the Queen’s New Year Honours. We also held a big event with our CEO, 60 guests, our volunteer service lead and Helpforce’s Director of Volunteering, where we officially launched our brand new volunteer service.

We were working in a short term volunteer set-up established in the pandemic, providing the best service we could in the circumstances. But we wanted a longer term, properly resourced approach that would allow us to accelerate the growth and impact of volunteering. We spent the past year envisioning our strategy and building the foundations of our service. So this Volunteers’ Week we launched the service with the ambitious goal of growing and sustaining volunteering.

What volunteer services did you set up?

We’ve only got seven active volunteers because we were quite new to volunteering. And we're going through the growth stage now. We have a four year strategy and in the lifetime of that strategy, we want to reach a level of being able to sustain 100 active volunteers at any one time.

An early project throughout the pandemic was focussed on staff wellbeing. Volunteers helped ensure staff got recognition, by sending them thank you notes and gifts. Recognition is key to retaining staff but without volunteers we wouldn’t have the resources to offer the service. Volunteers set up wellbeing zones offering water and massages serviced by a provider. Results have been positive with 100% volunteer satisfaction reported and a 65% increase in traffic to our staff wellbeing intranet pages following the first wellbeing zone.

We are working on a dementia befriending volunteer role with older people offering social and cognitive stimulation activities to improve the experience of in-patients. A horticulture volunteering role in forensic services is also in the pipeline to help with patients’ confidence, resilience, and mental health. We’re having lots of conversations about what volunteer services we could offer.

How did you set up the service?

First, we took time to listen. We could have recruited volunteers straight away but we took time to develop a strategy first. We wanted to be very clear about the purpose, which was to ensure that every volunteer has an enjoyable experience and to enhance patient care. We also decided how we would work to ensure staff and volunteer teams were properly coordinated and how the relationships between us, staff volunteer supervisors and volunteers, who help patients, staff, visitors and carers, would work. We wrote a volunteer supervisor toolkit with guidance to staff on best practice. We are very clear about what we’re offering as a service and our purpose.

We go through a checklist of how services should prepare for volunteers before recruitment and placement. The service is involved in interviewing the volunteer. We don’t just send them out of the blue. If a service isn’t ready for volunteering we don’t place them. We are always responding to local needs, including during times when we shouldn’t involve volunteers. And we don't have a magic cupboard of volunteers who suddenly appear.

How did you get staff on board?

We initially piloted volunteering in staff wellbeing which is less complicated than working with patients. That gave our staff some exposure to the power of volunteers and what they can actually do. Now we have foundations in place, we're working actively with services in every way. We're not just recruiting volunteers, we're making sure people can manage them as well. So the volunteering service is sustainable. We want to eventually see that snowball effect, and we're building momentum for that. I hope it will come to a point where it becomes a critical mass where volunteering becomes part of the status quo, rather than outside of it. We are part of the HR team so we are taking a workforce approach to volunteering. We're making sure volunteers feel part of our organisation just like our staff.

How has Helpforce helped?

Helpforce has given us key resources to accelerate our volunteering, such as advice on how to plan, monitor and evaluate a service. I've had one-to-one mentoring support from a programme manager. It can be very lonely being a volunteer manager and starting volunteering from scratch. The Helpforce network has been a great source of peer support. Helpforce has also brought social proof.

What would you say to other Trusts setting up a volunteer service?

To volunteer managers I would say don't forget the importance of the less fun stuff. You need to be able to manage the service behind the scenes and all the back office admin.

To senior leaders I would say listen and spend time with your volunteer managers, because they are special people and bring a perspective to volunteering like no one else in your organisation.