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Volunteers

Special Considerations in The Supervision of Volunteers

Wasting a volunteer's time by giving him/her nothing meaningful to do has much worse repercussions than wasting an employee's time.
Volunteers deserve clearly designated workspaces, including storage space for papers, supplies, and correspondence.
Volunteers need accessibility to a supervisor or someone who can answer questions during the volunteer's work shift or when he/she telephones from the field.
Supervising volunteers involves instant accountability -- there is much less margin for mistreatment than with salaried staff.
Some socializing is appropriate as a demonstration of friendliness, as long as it doesn't inhibit productivity.
The key to best utilizing of volunteers (who are part-timers) is to analyze the task to be done; break jobs down into segments that can be accomplished in two to five hour shifts -- and list instructions in sequence for doing each task.
Recognition -- both thanks and acknowledgment of input -- should be continuous.
Courtesy is a major form of recognition.
You can recognize the work of all good volunteers by taking action to correct the poor performance of some volunteers.
Create a self-fulfilling prophecy: expect the best, most skilled performance from volunteers and see what happens.