Getting volunteerism right in the workplace - three things to consider

Getting volunteerism right in the workplace - three things to consider

Volunteerism is a beautiful thing. I’m never sure if it was Gen Dolittle (in the movie Pearl Harbour) or Kobi Yamada who said,

“There’s nothing stronger than the heart of a volunteer.”

Well, whether it’s Hollywood or a war hero or an inspirational CEO or any combination of those, that quote rings true. Volunteers run some of the largest projects and movements across the world and we’ll be silly to underestimate what they can achieve. In the world of work, though, we’ll also be silly to think of the volunteer army as a panacea. Don’t get me wrong - I’d be the last person to tell you that there’s no room for passion projects at work. At the same time, if you want to get heaps done through volunteerism, you might set yourself up for disappointment. In today’s post I want to outline three things you should do to make volunteerism succeed at your organisation.

Don’t hinge it all on volunteers

Volunteer armies won't give your project wings

Volunteerism is not Red Bull. It won’t give your project wings. If you look around the world, and examine popular movements and projects of this kind, you’ll notice that they almost always start with a serious investment of time and effort from a small group of people. Well before an initiative becomes large, some people need to set up the frameworks for others to contribute, to provide design oversight, and to even define what the collective effort is all about. We look at movements like Fridays for Future and even iconic open source projects such as the Linux OS as paragons of volunteer effort and yet, none of these would have been possible without the full-time effort of the people who started them. Yes. Full. Time. Effort. 

So if your project is important, staff it with a proper team. Use the full-time capacity to create the space for volunteers to come in and contribute in their spare time. Identify areas of work that are important but not on the project’s critical path. These are excellent volunteer opportunities. Think “valuable but not urgent” as the way to identify what you can achieve through your volunteers. 

Think chickens and pigs

Agile safari - chicken and pigs comic

If I had a penny for each time I’ve referenced this comic, I’d probably be a millionaire by now. And if you know me and are tired of this reference, I wouldn’t blame you. I’m going to use it all the same and make my point anyway. Your core team are the pigs - they are “committed” to the success of the project. You’re possibly reviewing their performance based on how well they execute these projects. The volunteers are the chickens. They contribute through the pure goodness of their heart - and may whichever god you believe in bless them for that. All that said, they’re merely “involved” in the gig. The last thing you want is for chickens to bottleneck the pigs. Imagine someone whose job it is to execute a project, to be blocked by someone who takes part in their spare time. Not only is this counterproductive, it’s a dampener on people’s motivation. 

So what can you, as a leader, do? Well, for one, manage your own expectations on what a volunteer army can achieve. If you see a project slowing down, the solution is rarely to just enlist volunteers. You either need to realign the priorities of your “committed” team or staff the team with more committed people; noting, of course, that there’s only so big a team can get. And just do less. Don’t worry, it's ok to do a few things well than to do many mediocre things.

“Everyone tries to do too much: solve too many problems, build products with too many features. We say ‘no’ to almost everything.” - Founders, 37signals/ Basecamp

Account for all costs

In the workplace, people’s time is a zero sum game. If they spent time on one activity, then they’re almost certainly taking time away from another activity. And please, don’t come at me with “You know, they can always stretch.” That’s just another way of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Someone always pays for the costs.

  • Either the customer who the volunteer was actually committed to pays, because the time the volunteer would have spent delivering value for them, now goes somewhere else;
  • or the volunteer pays with their own time which they could have spent in different ways. 

One way or another, there is a cost to people’s time, and a problem with corporate volunteerism is that we have little discipline accounting for it. The side effect of this is that we externalise the costs of volunteerism and only cheerlead for the benefits. Consider the flipside when you diligently account for the time (and consequent costs) of your volunteers. 

  1. You learn the true cost of the initiative.
  2. You learn who paid for the initiative - your employees, the organisation or your customers or some combination of those three.
  3. You can use this information to fund the initiative in the future.

A true and transparent accounting of volunteer work is not just informative, it’s the ethical thing to do. Volunteer effort is anything but free and to create the illusion that initiatives get delivered at a cost exclusive of that effort stops you from being a data driven organisation. 

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As I come to the end of this blog post I hope you don’t see me as opposed to the idea of volunteerism in the workplace. As someone who’s been a volunteer both at my organisation and often for initiatives at my clients’, I know the sense of autonomy it gives individuals to pick something that aligns with their passions. The only point I want to make is that harnessing this passion doesn’t and shouldn’t come for free. If I got that point across, I’m guessing this post was worth its while.

Satish Kumar Viswanathan (He/Him)

Head of Social Change and Sustainability - ThoughtWorks India & Middle East

2y

This article certainly struck a chord. As someone who works with volunteers passionate about social change, I also see their struggles to contribute over their regular commitments. As an organization, while we strive to provide some volunteer hours, it's often not enough. I'd love to see us and more businesses account for this more fully.

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Anuraj Shinde

Business Experience Designer specialising in Gen AI and Data Science at Deloitte

2y

Thank you for sharing the post Sumeet. I found the Account for the cost section very insightful. What I would like to add is with time and cost we should also have metric of what learning one got out of the volunteering experience. Because would certainly add the to his or her demonstrable skills and addition in the portfolio

Savita Hortikar🌐

Vice President: Global Talent Acquisition leader at Fractal.ai : | alumni Oracle,Yahoo!, IBM, Thoughtworks

2y

The word "volunteer" itself means that you are aware of that you have a day job and would like to contribute to some other project that you resonate with. The reward can be learning/networking/building community, etc. While the efforts of the core team or the "pigs" has to be accounted for, it is not possible to do it for the "chickens". When someone signs up as a volunteer it is very clear that it is a "stretch".Organizations ask for vounteers to give an opportunity to people to work across functions/ business units and gain exp that they cannot get in their current assignment/role or doing something they are passionate about. I liked your thoughts on this topic though I do not quite agree with the analogy that stretch assignments rob peter to pay paul.

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Vishal Prasad

Founder of EnterpriseJoy - Crafting Organisational Excellence in - Under 5 Hours™ • Principal Consultant at Technogise • Advisory Board Member • Blogger, Speaker, Podcaster • Forever Curious 🔭

2y

Ah, the hunt for volunteers, someone always needs to create that clarity of purpose before others tag along. Thank you for putting it out especially the emphasis on zero sum game, volunteering at work cannot / should not be treated as an outside of work activity.

Romel Kumar, CSPO®

ThoughtWorker | CSPO | SCRUM | Business Analysis | Project Delivery | Product Lifecycle Management

2y

Very nicely laid out - Volunteers can only take it so far, for an initiative to turn into something more meaningful and tangible it needs the Time, effort and in Full - else it rubs the risk of gathering dust and and getting lost in the sands of time. Volunteerism while it has brought about many a disruptions it does come with unwritten responsibility.

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