Summary of Network members discussion: Staff support for volunteering

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Created by Debbie Ambrose
Last updated 4 months ago
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06 February 2023 at 3:50pm
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In some areas staff are embracing volunteers and understand the positive impact that they have; however, this may vary from one department to another within the same organisation,

What’s working well

  • Approaching staff members with previous experience to champion volunteers
  • Having a designated staff member (eg ward manager) to take on volunteer inductions and offer support for new volunteers.

Challenges

  • Continual staff changes.
  • Lack of staff time to carry out inductions.
  • Trying to get a slot on corporate inductions.
  • Volunteers lacking in confidence and training.

Top tips from our guests

  • Show the monetary value of volunteers by calculating the number of hours they are contributing, based on minimum wage.
  • Meet face to face with staff and help them understand the benefits that volunteers can bring to their department
  • Ask volunteers at the end of their shift to give feedback which can then be shared with the wards / departments. In one organisation the positive feedback they are receiving from volunteers is creating a better understanding and encouraging staff to invest more time.
  • Allocate a named mentor for every volunteer.
  • Offer staff training to demonstrate the value of volunteers. One of our guests would like to create a video as part of this training.
  • Don’t wait to be invited to staff meetings / ward huddles - ask if you can go along to see if there are opportunities to promote your volunteers
  • Arrange for staff champions to promote volunteering as part of department meetings.
  • Organise a meeting with all your staff champions every 3 months.

Volunteer Service Manager guides

  • One of our guests is looking at writing a guide and is interested to hear if others have done something similar. If you have any useful information, please reply on this Forum.

Comms

  • If your organisation has sites spread across a large area it can work well to hold a promotion day for volunteering at each location.

Useful resources shared by our guests

Hospice Ward volunteer role description

Volunteers in Partnership flyer – see attached below

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