I would never judge the quality of an employee by how many hours he or she worked. When I see someone regularly working overtime, week after week, here are my thoughts:

• That person’s job might be too much for one person; that job might need to be broken up into two positions.
• That person might be doing things he or she shouldn’t be doing, and ignoring what should be priorities. I wonder what isn’t getting done?
• That person may not be qualified for this position.
• That person may have personal problems that aren’t allowing him or her to get this job done.

So, if I wouldn’t think the number of hours worked by an employee is a good indicator of their job performance, why would I judge a volunteer by the number of hours he or she contributes?

When judging volunteer performance, I look at:

• What did he or she accomplish as a volunteer for this organization?
• How does this person’s volunteering – specifically this person’s time and effort – have a positive effect?
• How did volunteering have a positive effect on him or her?

Which is actually how I judge paid employees as well…

I gather that data by:

• surveying volunteers, employees, clients and the public, through both traditional online and printed surveys and formal and informal interviews
• reading through feedback that comes through emails, memos and online discussion groups
• listening and writing down comments I hear
• observing their work for myself

What about you? Is your organization still giving out volunteer recognition based on number of hours provided to an organization? Is the person who donated 100 hours to your organization last year really more valuable than the person who donated 20?