teer was doing. If you depend on volunteers for a lot of the work, for example people that do volunteer work for churches, and you hire someone to take over the job, you not only risk losing the person as a volunteer but as a church member also. You cannot take the volunteer for granted or insult them by just replacing them. If someone is offering their services like mowing the church yard and you start hiring someone else to do the job, how do you think the volunteer feels? If there is a problem with the frequency of the mowing or the quality of the work, tAs more of our population reach retirement age, retirees are looking for something to keep them busy. People volunteer for various reasons, when we have children, we volunteer to work with our children in scouting, church work, school functions and sports. With more free time available as we retire, we volunteer at hospitals, churches, etc. As a volunteer myself, I can understand some challenges when working with volunteers.

The first thing I ran into is that organizations want to compensate volunteers in some way for the work they do. In my opinion this is not what a volunteer expects, or they would not volunteer, but take a part time job. When someone volunteers they do not expect anything in return, and if given money, gifts or gift cards, may feel that something is taken away from the act of volunteering. A simple thank-you to the volunteer as a show of appreciation is all that is normally needed. Someone who volunteers usually gets great satisfaction from doing a job well and seeing the results of their work.

The next item that frequently comes up is the issue of control. If you hire an employee for a specified job, then you control the actions of that employee, this is not so with a volunteer. A volunteer will offer services for something that they enjoy doing. They usually have very defined ideals about what and how they work. From the organization point of view, the choice is whither to accept the help or turn it down. You can certainly work with the volunteer and discuss the details of a project, but care must be taken not to push or try to change the direction that the volunteer wants to go. I am not saying to let the volunteer run your organization, you must have guide lines and limits and these should be made clear from the start. Keep in mind that you don't fire volunteers, you run them off. If you have a specified job that you would like the volunteer to perform, then offer it to them in a way that they will be comfortable in turning down. Be sure that they buy into the project before accepting it. This is not only necessary with volunteers but works well with employees as well.

Another problem I have seen involving volunteers, is when someone is hired to take over the job that a volunteer was doing. If you depend on volunteers for a lot of the work, for example people that do volunteer work for churches, and you hire someone to take over the job, you not only risk losing the person as a volunteer but as a church member also. You cannot take the volunteer for granted or insult them by just replacing them. If someone is offering their services like mowing the church yard and you start hiring someone else to do the job, how do you think the volunteer feels? If there is a problem with the frequency of the mowing or the quality of the work, th

is is not what a volunteer expects, or they would not volunteer, but take a part time job. When someone volunteers they do not expect anything in return, and if given money, gifts or gift cards, may feel that something is taken away from the act of volunteering. A simple thank-you to the volunteer as a show of appreciation is all that is normally needed. Someone who volunteers usually gets great satisfaction from doing a job well and seeing the results of their work.

The next item that frequently comes up is the issue of control. If you hire an employee for a specified job, then you control the actions of that employee, this is not so with a volunteer. A volunteer will offer services for something that they enjoy doing. They usually have very defined ideals about what and how they work. From the organization point of view, the choice is whither to accept the help or turn it down. You can certainly work with the volunteer and discuss the details of a project, but care must be taken not to push or try to change the direction that the volunteer wants to go. I am not saying to let the volunteer run your organization, you must have guide lines and limits and these should be made clear from the start. Keep in mind that you don't fire volunteers, you run them off. If you have a specified job that you would like the volunteer to perform, then offer it to them in a way that they will be comfortable in turning down. Be sure that they buy into the project before accepting it. This is not only necessary with volunteers but works well with employees as well.

Another problem I have seen involving volunteers, is when someone is hired to take over the job that a volunteer was doing. If you depend on volunteers for a lot of the work, for example people that do volunteer work for churches, and you hire someone to take over the job, you not only risk losing the person as a volunteer but as a church member also. You cannot take the volunteer for granted or insult them by just replacing them. If someone is offering their services like mowing the church yard and you start hiring someone else to do the job, how do you think the volunteer feels? If there is a problem with the frequency of the mowing or the quality of the work, t

e for a specified job, then you control the actions of that employee, this is not so with a volunteer. A volunteer will offer services for something that they enjoy doing. They usually have very defined ideals about what and how they work. From the organization point of view, the choice is whither to accept the help or turn it down. You can certainly work with the volunteer and discuss the details of a project, but care must be taken not to push or try to change the direction that the volunteer wants to go. I am not saying to let the volunteer run your organization, you must have guide lines and limits and these should be made clear from the start. Keep in mind that you don't fire volunteers, you run them off. If you have a specified job that you would like the volunteer to perform, then offer it to them in a way that they will be comfortable in turning down. Be sure that they buy into the project before accepting it. This is not only necessary with volunteers but works well with employees as well.

Another problem I have seen involving volunteers, is when someone is hired to take over the job that a volunteer was doing. If you depend on volunteers for a lot of the work, for example people that do volunteer work for churches, and you hire someone to take over the job, you not only risk losing the person as a volunteer but as a church member also. You cannot take the volunteer for granted or insult them by just replacing them. If someone is offering their services like mowing the church yard and you start hiring someone else to do the job, how do you think the volunteer feels? If there is a problem with the frequency of the mowing or the quality of the work, t

ization, you must have guide lines and limits and these should be made clear from the start. Keep in mind that you don't fire volunteers, you run them off. If you have a specified job that you would like the volunteer to perform, then offer it to them in a way that they will be comfortable in turning down. Be sure that they buy into the project before accepting it. This is not only necessary with volunteers but works well with employees as well.

Another problem I have seen involving volunteers, is when someone is hired to take over the job that a volunteer was doing. If you depend on volunteers for a lot of the work, for example people that do volunteer work for churches, and you hire someone to take over the job, you not only risk losing the person as a volunteer but as a church member also. You cannot take the volunteer for granted or insult them by just replacing them. If someone is offering their services like mowing the church yard and you start hiring someone else to do the job, how do you think the volunteer feels? If there is a problem with the frequency of the mowing or the quality of the work, t

teer was doing. If you depend on volunteers for a lot of the work, for example people that do volunteer work for churches, and you hire someone to take over the job, you not only risk losing the person as a volunteer but as a church member also. You cannot take the volunteer for granted or insult them by just replacing them. If someone is offering their services like mowing the church yard and you start hiring someone else to do the job, how do you think the volunteer feels? If there is a problem with the frequency of the mowing or the quality of the work, then it should be discussed very carefully with the volunteer and maybe you work out a schedule with the volunteer mowing one week and the hired person mowing one week. Move slowly and make sure that everyone is comfortable with any change before acting.

The last thing I want to discuss is the motive of the volunteer. When someone offers free services, make sure that you know what their motive is. Discuss this with them at length before accepting their offer. In a church for example, you may have someone who feels that they must work to gain acceptance from Christ and the Church, if your church is like ours then entering Heaven is not based on works. This is the gift that Jesus gave to us, we cannot earn it. I have seen some volunteers in the church that work hard, but do not behave as Christians. I would question their motives for being there. Then you also have a small number of people who may want to just cause trouble and enjoy it. They may volunteer just for the pleasure of interfering or stirring up things. I have also seen people offer services and then try to wheel and deal in order to make a profit from the organization.

If your organization uses or depends on volunteers, then you have many challenges. We need volunteers and people want to feel needed. It is a wonderful and rare thing when two needs can be satisfied at the same time.