Have you evaluated your volunteer onboarding pinch points?

For many VCSE organisations, generating interest in their volunteer roles isn’t a problem - but actually getting volunteers in the door and regularly undertaking shifts is.

A volunteer's journey from making initial contact to completing their first shift usually includes four critical pinch points:

• After a prospective volunteer makes contact, but before they receive a response

• After they receive a response, but before an interview is scheduled

• After interview until first shift

• After the first shift

Pinch point 1: After initial contact but before response

Your first response is a great opportunity to set the tone for the whole volunteer experience. When someone signs up, they are keen and motivated. Responding to them quickly, and with enthusiam and gratitude, is a great way to start their volunteer experience off on the right foot.

Ideally, all prospective volunteers would be responded to within hours, even if this is a brief (but still warm and polite) acknowledgement email. For example:

“Thank you so much for your interest in volunteering for us. Your details have now been passed to our Volunteer Manager, (NAME), and they’ll be in touch in the next X hours with next steps.”

You can often set up email rules which will send an automatic response to emails received with certain words in the subject. This is a great time saver, and shows prsopective volunteers that you’re competent and engaged.

Pinch point 2: From response until interview

After initial contact is made and an interview is scheduled, prospective volunteers are in a state of limbo, not yet knowing if their application to volunteer will be accepted.

At this point, why not offer prospective volunteers tasks that they can carry out prior to interview? Go Volunteer Glos has recently introduced a “Microvolunteering” tag for opportunities, and setting up a number of different tasks here would enable you to signpost prospective volunteers to these roles whilst their application is being progressed. Microvolunteering roles might include:

• Social media engagement: Following, liking and reposting your organisation’s social posts

• Event support: Helping out at an upcoming event, such as litter picking or stewarding

• Sharing their expertise e.g. through giving a talk for your service users, or writing an article for your newsletters

Pinch point 3: After interview until first shift

Even after a volunteer has completed an interview, obtained a DBS check and provided any other information required for them to take up the post, they might never arrive for their first shift.

For many volunteers (who might have been away from a workplace for some time), insufficient information about what to expect on their first day causes significant anxiety.

To help to overcome this, you could produce a “What to expect on your first day” guide, which covers topics such as:

• The location and where to park

• Arrival time

• The name of the person who will meet them

• What to wear

• Whether they should bring their own food and drinks

If this guidance can include the names of key individuals (such as the person who will meet them) and photographs of the car park, entrance and other facilities, this will go a long way to ease any anxiety.

Pinch point 4: After the first shift

If a volunteer turns up and undertakes a first shift, but doesn’t feel valued or is offput in some way, this requires further investigation.

A volunteer’s induction should follow similar steps to that of a new employee. Ideally, volunteers will be greeted on their first day by a known contact, shown around the premises and (if applicable) introduced to other volunteers. Pay attention to the reasons given at interview for wanting to volunteer: was it because they were passionate about your cause, wanted to learn new skills or wanted to make new connections? Think ahead of time about how you can meet their individual needs in the tasks assigned to them.

After the first shift is completed, schedule a quick catch-up call to check how they got on and if they have any questions. Make sure they know when they should next attend.

If you’re having difficulty attracting volunteers to apply for your volunteer roles in the first instance, please let us know - there’s often something we can do to help via Go Volunteer Glos.