Engaging staff in reducing the volunteer attrition rate
Abstract
Staff can aid the volunteer program manager in reducing the turnover of volunteers. Positive communication, recognition, important tasks, and a "thank you" now and again can contribute to keeping volunteers. But first, staff members have to believe that a high attrition rate is costly to the organization. This effective practice from Nancy Macduff provides a way to calculate the cost of getting each volunteer as a way to motivate staff. Adapted with permission from VolunteerToday.com, August 2002.Issue
Volunteer attrition is a costly expense that organizations can mitigate by helping staff to recognize the actual dollars involved with loss of productivity and the process of recruiting replacements.Action
To convince staff that a high attrition rate is costly to the organization, determine the cost of securing one volunteer and share this information at a staff meeting.
To determine overall costs, consider the following:
- Time to design, write, and place public service announcements—then divide that cost by the number of volunteers to arrive at cost per person (use the same formula for determining other costs on this list)
- Cost of designing, printing, and distribution of recruitment brochures or flyers
- Web recruiting design and processing of inquiries (Keep track of inquiries—one volunteer program had 100 inquiries for every one volunteer actually placed)
- Staff and resource support to a volunteer recruiting team (postage, meeting mailings, staff time, and related costs)
- Time to talk to prospective volunteers (phone logs are critical)
- Interviews—time to train interviewers (if you use volunteers), paper forms used, and related costs
- Cost of criminal records background checks, medical exams, and related expenses
- Training costs—room rental, equipment amortization, paper used, notebooks cost, and related costs
- Cost of recognition items
- Cost of newsletter distribution
- Uniforms, badges, name tags
No doubt you have other things you do to recruit and manage volunteers that could be added to this list. Determine the cost per person for each of the aggregate numbers. This gives you an idea of what it costs to replace one volunteer.
Some large organizations can tell you the cost to the penny of replacing an employee. Talk with someone who can give you ideas on how to supplement this list and how they go about determining fair numbers.
What you are seeking is an incentive for people to be nice to volunteers and involve them wisely, so they stick around.
Citation
Macduff, Nancy. Building Effective Volunteer Committees. 2nd edition. MBA Publishing, 1986.
This effective practice is adapted with permission from VolunteerToday.com, August 2002.
This article, and others on training, can be viewed at http://www.volunteertoday.com/train.html.
E-mail: sales@volunteertoday.com
Phone: (509) 529-0244
Posted On
August 23, 2002For More Information