Tag Archives: complaints

Song of frustration re: volunteering

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handstopDave Carroll became famous for writing a song and making a video about United Airlines smashing his guitar and not taking responsibility for it. The video went viral, Mr. Carroll not only appeared on various media outlets as a result, including CNN and The View, not only did United give him the financial settlement and apology he’d been demanding for months, he also became a paid speaker for various conferences and retreats, talking about “inhuman customer-service policies” and their unseen costs: loss of customer trust (and, therefore, customers), brand destruction, and more.

In February of this year, after he tried to volunteer at his son’s school, Mr. Carroll produced another song and video, this one about his frustration at trying to volunteer at his son’s school. It’s called “There’s Got to Be a Better Way.” You can watch the entire video, where Mr. Carroll makes fun of the volunteer screening at length, or just jump to the song about the experience at the 5:56 mark.

IMO, the video and song are a PERFECT example of thoughtless volunteer screening, where nonprofit and public sector organizations are interested just in checking a box rather than doing MEANINGFUL, effective screening of someone to work with kids.

I am so tired of seeing the question on discussion groups for managers of volunteers: “Where can I get a cheap criminal background check for potential volunteers?” or “How do I get a discount at the police station for police to do background checks of potential volunteers.” These people are looking for a box to check, rather than creating a culture that keeps everyone safe. Instead, read Screening Volunteers to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse: A Community Guide for Youth Organizations (it’s free to download) and use its very effective ways for screening out inappropriate candidates and creating a culture of safety. Combine it with Beyond Police Checks: The Definitive Volunteer & Employee Screening Guidebook by Linda Graff, available from Energize, Inc. (but not for free), and you’ve got a solid, more-than-basic understanding of risk management in volunteer engagement activities, and know how to better assure safety without driving away quality volunteering candidates. You also will understand how mindlessly enforcing protocols, without thinking about their purpose, doesn’t keep anyone safe.

Also see these related blogs:

Screening applicants by reviewing their online activities

Safety in virtual volunteering

Keeping volunteers safe – & keeping everyone safe with volunteers

“If no one is complaining, we don’t have to change how we do things”

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handstopOne of the most common defenses I hear from an organization or program not addressing issues regarding diversity, communications, and accommodations is this:

We’ve done it this way for years, and no one has complained about that. No volunteer / client / member / donor has ever said they don’t like how we do such-and-such. You are the only one. So we’re not changing.

My observation might be about the way something is worded on a web site. Or the process to submit an application for volunteering. It could be about the lack of mass transit access to a location of an annual event or training. It could be about a lack of representation of various groups amid volunteer ranks. Or about a prayer before a volunteer recognition event at a secular organization. It could be about a lack of certain information in another language. Any of the aforementioned, and more, often incurs that defense when I bring up an issue related to diversity, accommodations or communications.

Often, when I do a little digging myself, talking to people that wanted to volunteer at the organization but didn’t, or to current members, or to former clients, and on and on, I find that, indeed, there is dissatisfaction among a few, maybe even more, but no one says anything to the organization itself, because no one wants to be seen as ruining an event or hurting the feelings of others or not being “a team player.” Some even fear repercussions by friends, neighbors and others. So they don’t say anything about something they would like to see changed or improved because there is a culture within the program or the entire organization, that discourages complaints or suggestions.

In the 1990s, I worked for a really incredible organization called Joint Venture: Silicon Valley. While I worked there, as internal communications manager – very much a junior staffer – a board member arranged for a retired HR executive from his oh-so-large global company to visit our organization and do a survey and discussion with staff about the work culture and environment, and then report our feedback to senior staff, keeping individual comments anonymous. That HR executive handled those surveys and conversations with the greatest of care, making us feel welcomed and comfortable in sharing what we liked, and what we didn’t, about our workplace. Afterward, he revealed to us, then senior staff, that junior staff and assistants felt we operated from a place of fear, rather than a place of power. We, as an organization, were risk-averse and even suggestion-averse. We felt corrections were given out by management far more than praise and support. After senior staff got over the shock of the culture they created – they really had no idea – things changed almost immediately, under that HR expert’s guidance. It rapidly became a delightful place to work, because senior management changed the way they worked and talked to all staff. And we all felt free to suggest, even to complain.

Would your organization be so brave?

Also see:

The question I get asked again & again

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I often feel that most letters to Dear Abby and other advice columnists can be summed up thusly:

There is this thing I need to do or say, because I’m suffering per the behavior of someone else, but I don’t want to address it because it’s going to make me uncomfortable to say or do what I need to say or do, it’s going to make other people uncomfortable, and the people I’m speaking about/to may end up not liking me, have their feelings hurt, etc. So how can I do or say this thing that I really need to do in such a way that no one will be angry, I won’t be uncomfortable, everyone will listen, all is well afterwards with no resentment or hostility, and I get the change in behavior I need?

And I realized over the course of the four presentations I did in the last two weeks that most questions asked by managers of volunteers can be summed up thusly as well.

Two of my most popular blogs are about how managers of volunteers are under pressure to always please volunteers  and The volunteer as bully = the toxic volunteer. Both of these blogs reflect the aversion of managers of volunteers to conflict, complaints and uncomfortable conversations.

This aversion comes from a misplaced notion that managers of volunteers must be:

  • always nice
  • never confrontational
  • always welcoming of all volunteers no matter what those volunteers might say or how they may act
  • make everyone happy at all times

How do we change that expectation of managers of volunteers – both from others and by ourselves?

Also see this oh-so-popular blog, the Volunteer Manager Fight Club.

No complaints means success?

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Back in April 2010, I published the following blog. It became one of my most popular entries. Later that year, my blog home moved – and then, just two years later, it moved again. I managed to recover this via archive.org, and am republishing it here on what I hope will be my blog home for a long, long time:

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During my workshops in Australia last month, I asked managers of volunteers how their executive leadership at their organizations define success regarding volunteer involvement. And one of the answers really disturbed me:

“It’s successful if no one complains.”

The person who made this statement didn’t think this was a good measure of volunteer involvement at her organization; she was acknowledging a reality at her organization, but did not like it. And at least two other people said similar things about their organizations — that senior management did not want to hear about any problems with volunteers and, if they did, it meant the volunteer manager wasn’t doing her (or his) job.

It means that just one volunteer complaint — including complaints about being reprimanded for not following policy —  would result in senior leadership displeasure with the volunteer manager. One person said that her supervisor, in regards to complaints by a long-time volunteer who did not want to follow policy, “I just don’t want to hear it. Make her happy.”

I heard this theme a few times, in fact: that senior management was more displeased about getting a complaint from a volunteer than they were that the volunteer had violated a policy and been given a verbal or written reprimand.

If you are facing this, confront it head on:

  • Consider meeting one-on-one with the senior leader who thinks this way, to discuss why a complaint from a volunteer isn’t a sign of a failure in the program, why it’s often necessary to do something that upsets a volunteer (just as it’s sometimes necessary to do something that upsets an employee), etc. Talk about the consequences of not addressing problems with volunteers. Even if you walk away thinking you haven’t changed his or her mind, you’ve at least planted a seed of doubt in the senior manager’s mind about his or her thinking about volunteer management.
  • While volunteer management is not exactly the same as HR management, volunteer management does involve HR management, and reprimanding volunteers because of policy violations is an example of that. Meet with the HR manager to make sure your policies and procedures — and enforcement — are in line with each other, and that he or she endorse your practices at a staff meeting or a meeting with senior management.
  • Consider conducting a brief workshop for staff (over lunch is a great time) about how and why volunteers may be disciplined, why following policies and procedures is vitally important for the organization’s credibility and for staff and volunteer safety, the consequences of not addressing policy violations, how complaints from volunteers are handled, etc.
  • Include information about problems you face as the volunteer manager in your regular reporting and how you systematically, dispassionately address such.

And on a related note, here is my interview with OzVPM Director Andy Fryar, talking about the trainings in Australia last month.

Also see

The volunteer as bully = the toxic volunteer.

With Volunteers, See No Evil?