Positive Change

One area in my organization which could be improved is the volunteer coordination and management. Currently, there are six staff managers who manage their own individual areas throughout the week. Each day, the responsibility of volunteer coordinator rotates throughout each manager and their responsibilities for the day include managing the volunteers. This is a problem for multiple reasons. First, there is not one, go to person for volunteers to communicate with. If the manager that the volunteer normally works with is not in on a particular day, then they would need to contact a manager who they might never have even met before. Another issue arises when six people take on the same job – things get lost and communication becomes interrupted. Too many cooks in the kitchen, as some say. Lastly, because the managers have their own responsibilities with respect to their areas, they often are torn between their volunteer coordinating and their management responsibilities.
The type of management that I think is currently being utilized closely resembles the Laissez-faire model which places a great amount of pressure, freedom, and responsibility on all of the managers. Rather than utilizing one single “chairman” or supervisor, each area tends to run in an open, uncoordinated manner. This style of management can work very well in many situations. And, for the most part, I think it works very well for my organization. However, with respect to the volunteer team, I think it would be valuable to employ more of a Paternalistic management style. In this situation, one supervisor is responsible for making decisions and delegating tasks. The subordinates are still responsible and the environment is still open and courteous, however the greatest responsibility lies in the supervisor. This would work well in the volunteer team because all of the volunteers would have one supervisor with whom to communicate. Also, tasks can be well delegated and all of the volunteers would understand their responsibilities. Their duties would be the same everyday, rather than differ based on which manager was responsible for them on that particular day.
In order to integrate this plan, I would first need to appoint a volunteer supervisor whose job duties and responsibilities rest solely on coordinating and managing the volunteers. I would then have the current managers continue their jobs managing their own departments and have them spend a few weeks with the new supervisor, explaining how they managed the volunteers on their volunteer day. I would not want to cut out the managers completely, but rather allow them to place some of their responsibilities on the volunteer supervisor so that they could be sure to focus on their own responsibilities associated with their management position. I would inform the volunteers of the changes and have them sign in and out at the volunteer office and have the opportunity to speak with the new supervisor about any questions or concerns they might have. It would also be beneficial to have a workshop or meeting to get all of the volunteers on the same page about their responsibilities and answer any questions they have. I would instruct them to get any area-specific information from the managers, but make sure that they understand what is expected of them from the standpoint of the organization.