Putting together a Volunteer schedule comes with all the stress of a normal employee schedule plus the added risk that your volunteer never shows up – because nobody is requiring them to.
Fortunately, in today’s day and age, there are enough tools meant specifically for work schedules that you should never have to stress about Volunteer shifts ever again.
Today, we will go over a few tips that could go a long way in helping you stay organized in your scheduling.
How to Deal with Volunteer Schedules
We know, we know. . . creating volunteer schedules can sometimes resemble a managerial Tetris board. There are cancellations, late-comers, and high-pressure, time-sensitive events.
But really, can we speak candidly about how much time is wasted just putting together a simple volunteer schedule every week only to be flipped on its head in the ensuing days? It’s a mess! And, at times, it causes rage to rush through our veins. If only the volunteers knew how much we went through just to get their name on the schedule, perhaps the too-often ‘no call-no show’ would feel more pressure to be present.
This is not the point of this article, though. Of course, we appreciate each and every person that walks through our organization’s door. We recognize their willingness to help us in our mission and their dedication to the cause. However, there has to be a way to avoid all the stresses of complicated volunteer scheduling.
After all, when we create an unpredictable volunteer schedule, it’s not only stressful for us, but for our volunteers too. And that’s the last thing we want.
So here are a few tips to help you out. . .
Staying Organized While Scheduling Volunteer Shifts
Make the Scheduling Process Semi-Automatic
Better communication between you and your employees is the key to better staff planning. Instead of writing and rewriting paper plans or spreadsheets, automate your process with a solution that provides real-time updates and notifications to your teams when they access and change. Automation not only makes it easier to create, manage and edit schedules, it also reduces the time it takes to send reminders via SMS or leave voice messages for volunteers.
We will tell you about a cool tool we use a little later.
Be Aware of How Much Time You Spend Scheduling
By keeping track of how much time you spend each week creating schedules for your volunteers, you get a better perspective on the challenge and can set better goals for the coming weeks. If you spend too much time planning, or if the time spent with each new acquisition increases, you will not look for an alternative unless you have a record-keeping of previous weeks.
Tools to Help Build a Volunteer Schedule at your Nonprofit
Our go-to scheduling tool has been Timesheet Plus. A one-stop web-based work scheduling program. With this powerful tool, you can:
- Share important scheduling information with volunteers remotely through computers and mobile devices that use the cloud. This way your team stays under control and communication with them is easy.
- Access reports from previous programs and analyze them to identify areas for improvement. These evaluations can reveal opportunities to improve budgets and increase productivity.
- Integrate programming with other HR processes in management software package.
- Ensure compliance with labor laws. The system knows these rules automatically and does not allow them to be broken.
- Customize the specific skills and preferences of your employees to your time needs.
- It’s easy to find and fill scheduling gaps to maximize productivity and keep employees on time.
A Relief to Volunteer Scheduling
We hope you take some of this information into consideration. In the end, there are much more effective ways to spend your time rather than drafting and editing volunteers shifts.
If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to reach out to us!
If your organization is looking for a better way to tell stories to your community, CreativeVolunteer has the solution. Get in touch with us so we can discuss becoming partners working toward your mission partner@volunteer-opportunities.org.