Former Staff as Volunteers

Welcoming former staff back as volunteers is a great way to keep connected and to access individuals who are skilled as well as have an in-depth knowledge and understanding of your operation. I have recently encountered a learning experience when our summer camp welcomed two former heads of departments back for a three week volunteering experience. 

Summer Camp

These volunteers had been involved in our camp for over 5 summer seasons, each rising to lead their respective departments during their time on staff. They came with the desire to give back to our community, intending to take on a large scale but relatively isolated project and to use their free time to help out in the departments that they had once lead. 

Very little was given to them in way of an induction of their volunteer process and they both eagerly jumped in to their former departments excited to begin to contribute. Their presence and understanding created challenges. In one department the volunteer took it upon himself to complete all of the "fun" jobs, depriving the staff who had been working towards these fun jobs the opportunity to participate in them. 

In the second department the volunteer entered in and took on a leadership role, undermining the authority of the pre-existing leader, causing feelings of degradation among the lower ranked staff, and making programmatic changes that created future challenges within the department.

The volunteers were oblivious to the negative feelings that had transpired and were under the perception that they were accomplished thier objective of giving back to the community they love.

The upper level management (who had welcomed their former employees back to the community) were un-aware of the conflict that was brewing within their departments.

After the negative feelings had begun to brew the two departments approached the upper level management and requested a conversation regarding the volunteers. During this meeting all members of the departmens affected by the volunteers as well as the upper management. A closed door meeting was held where everyone was given the opportunity to express their preception of the situation, propose their ideal situation as well as what they viewed as compromises. 

Following this closed door meeting the executive director met with the volunteers to discuss a plan for moving forward. The volunteers both felt quite badly about how things had transpired. One offered to dedicate his full efforts to the project they had originally come to work on and to no longer work in his old department. The other volunteer requested some time to think about this and to have a meeting with the department she was the former head of.

In summary, two former heads of departments returned to volunteer in the departments they used to run and approached the situation with strong personalities and a mindset that they were there to run the department again.

The take away learning from this is to have a conversation with returning staff members about how their are new competent people in their former positions and that their role is to follow the lead of the staff member, that their role is to be an assistant not a leader. Potentially working with current staff to carve out places for the volunteer to lead activities within the parameters set by the current staff