5 Steps to Train Volunteers

No.

I’m not really going to give you 5 steps to train your volunteers. That’s not really my style. I don’t do “steps”. But what I will give you, that I think would be even more helpful than 5 steps, are 5 of the things I actually do FOR our volunteers. These are things that I’ve just started doing since my time at Crossroads. So these things are still pretty new to me. I’m still trying to tweak some stuff out and make them even better.

Orientation

All of our volunteers go through an orientation meeting that is mandatory. Yes, mandatory. Why do a mandatory orientation? Simple really. Orientation is when we go through the vision of the Tech Team at Crossroads, which an extremely huge part of it. This is where all our new volunteers get to learn why volunteering is so important, and why specific volunteer roles are so important, and how they help us accomplish the mission and vision of the church. Without them being there, they would just be aimlessly doing stuff. They wouldn’t understand why they are so vital and just how much they actually contribute to the church. Also, most of the time when people are recruited or sign up to volunteer, they don’t really have a clue what role they want to serve. So in this orientation we show a video that gives a brief overview of every volunteer position.

If you’re still scared of doing a mandatory orientation, provide dinner. People are always more apt to come to a meeting where there is free food, especially men. And let’s be honest, usually it’s the men we have the hardest time getting to a meeting like this during the week.

Apprenticeship

I believe very strongly that the best way to learn is to learn from someone who has gone before you. We take that same approach to training volunteers. In fact, we don’t even call it training. We call it “Apprenticing”. See, I don’t typically work in all of the roles we have on Sunday mornings. I’ve actually only worked CG once, and that was just 2 weeks ago! So if I try to train new volunteers, they aren’t going to be learning from someone who does that position often, or even at all. Plus I would probably bore them and scare a lot of them away with too much detail. But, if I let them apprentice over a couple of weeks with a seasoned volunteer, then they get to see the role in action and learn what is actually useful.

We follow a simple philosophy with apprenticing. It goes like this…

I do; you watch. I do; you help. You do; I help. You do; I watch. You do.

For our apprenticeship program, we require new volunteers to go through 2 weeks of apprenticeship. The 1st week, we ask them to sit in the tech booth for at least 1 service and watch a seasoned volunteer perform whatever role they’re interested in serving. Basically we want them to really shadow someone else to get a good idea of what the role requires. This gives them the chance to ask questions they may not have known to ask during the orientation. Then we require them to return a couple weeks later and serve a full day with us really getting their hands on the equipment and doing the role specific tasks. On that 2nd weekend, we usually try to schedule the same volunteer they shadowed previously, and the seasoned volunteer will be right behind them to answer any questions, help them if they need assistance, and jump in just in case of an emergency. That 2nd week of having the seasoned volunteer with them is so important because it gives new volunteers real hands on experience without having the pressure to already know everything and get it all right.

Scheduling

There is usually nothing more confusing, or stifling, to new volunteers than scheduling. I’ve never come across a magic schedule that keeps everyone happy. The best thing that I’ve discovered is that volunteers always do better and are happier when you slowly integrate them into the rotation. If you’re like us, and most churches, you already don’t have enough volunteers. So when we get new volunteers, our initial reaction is to throw them right into the fire. But I’ve found that usually when I do this, new volunteers burnout faster. I know that seems backwards, but it seems so true. At Crossroads, we have a great turnover rate on our volunteers. Actually, we don’t hardly have a turnover rate. In the time I’ve been here, I’ve only seen 3 volunteers stop serving, and only 1 had to do with burnout. Another had some heavy personal stuff going on and had to stop serving to focus on the family crisis, and the other actually just wasn’t quite cutting it in the role they chose. And come to think of it, the person who stepped out for personal reasons, is back serving with us again.

Another important thing here is making sure you’re not scheduling people too often. Obviously, that would result in people getting burnt out much faster. At Crossroads, we ask everyone to serve once every 4 weeks. This seems like the best rotation for us because 4 weeks is enough time apart that it doesn’t feel to often for those who don’t want to commit to heavily just yet. And for those who say they want to serve every weekend, it’s often enough that they don’t get tired of “not being asked to serve” and stop serving because we don’t ask them to. Plus with having 3 services every Sunday, our volunteers are committing 8 hours in one day to volunteering.

One other note on scheduling. If you subscribe to Planning Center Online use that junk to schedule volunteers. It’s so easy to use  and is much easier than sending out a bunch emails to schedule volunteers. Also, I schedule our volunteer teams 4 weeks in advance. That gives the volunteers enough time to respond so I can find someone else if I need to, and allows me to say, “Hey, you got the email 2 weeks ago. I really need to know if you are available or not.”

Make Sure They’re Happy

Even more important that training volunteers is making sure they’re happy. Happy with their role. Happy with how we do things. Happy with the schedule. And happy with me, their leader. I have this little saying, that I actually don’t say that much…

A happy volunteer is a great volunteer.

If you keep your volunteers happy, they will be much more willing to volunteer, and they’ll do a much better job in their role. And when volunteers are happy, they tell their friends at the church how happy they are to be serving on your team, and that might get their friend considering volunteering on your team. Then you add more people who are happy and tell their friends who come to you interested in serving. And the cycle continues.

Making sure your volunteers are happy requires a couple of steps.

If means being happy yourself. This is something that I’ll be honest and tell you I have to work on. I am the worst at wearing my emotions on my sleeves, always have been. And it’s gotten me in trouble with volunteers in the past, and recently. If someone tells me something I don’t want to hear on Sunday morning, I’ll let out a big huff right into the headset for all the volunteers to hear. Or I’ll give that person a stern look and say very strongly, “Well, I can’t do anything about that right now.” Not good leadership on my part, and definitely not good for keeping people happy.

Making sure volunteers are happy also means constantly asking them questions. The 1st thing I always ask new volunteers after they apprentice the 1st and 2nd week, and after they serve by themselves for the first is, “Did you like getting to do this?” You can only get 3 responses. Yes, no, and sort of. Yes means you’re doing something right and they’re happy. Sort of means they have more questions, or it really just wasn’t what they expected. No means they’re really not happy. The key is to see what you can do to make them happy. Maybe it means trying a different position on the team. Maybe it means serving on an entirely different team, like volunteering in the nursery. Or maybe, and worst of all, maybe you did or said something stupid that made them not like you. Whatever the case, you’ve got to keep asking questions to make sure volunteers are happy.

I’ll even periodically ask this question to volunteers who have been with us for a long time. For instance, Doug Anderson has been volunteering as a CG operator longer than I’ve even been going to Crossroads. We recently upgraded to ProPresenter 4, so after Doug’s 1st week using ProPresenter 4 I asked him, “How did you like ProPresenter 4?” I was honestly a little nervous about Doug’s answer because, while I already knew I loved ProPresenter 4, if Doug didn’t like, then I knew something would have to change, maybe even going back to ProPresenter 3. Luckily Doug liked it, and so do the rest of our CG volunteers.

Be Available

I can’t tell you how important this is. Being available really is the MOST important thing you can do for your volunteers. It communicates a lot of things to volunteers, not the least of which is that I truly care about you. Feeling needed to fill a open volunteer slot is one thing. Knowing that you have someone to talk to is something completely different and much more meaningful.One of my top CG volunteers is Meghan Barnett. Meghan is moving the end of June to Kentucky for her husband’s job. I can’t tell you how very sad I am to see Meghan move. When she volunteers, she is the life of the Tech Booth. I want Meghan to know that I care about her and am so sad to see her go, so we’re planning a lunch on the last weekend that she’s serving with us for everyone on the Tech Team to come to and tell Meghan how much we’ll miss her. I remember when Desi and I moved to Charlotte. The church where we were volunteering gave us a $100 gas card to pay the gas for the U-haul. It was little, but it meant a lot.

Being available doesn’t mean just doing big stuff like throwing a going away party. It’s also taking time every Sunday to ask each of your volunteers individually how they are doing. Not just a, “Hey John. How’s it going man?” But really asking them how they are; how their family is doing; and what major stuff is happening in their lives. This is something else that I really have to work on. My biggest problem, as is probably yours, is there just isn’t enough time on Sunday mornings to stop to have a conversation with each of your volunteers. But let’s be honest, we have to do it. We only get to spend time with our volunteers once a month. So much can happen in that amount of time, and if we don’t stop to ask, we’ll never know.

So those are the 5 things I try to do for our volunteers. And honestly, something that makes this stuff so easy to do is having great volunteers. There’s not a single volunteer on our team that I don’t enjoy spending time with, and hope they all know that. I hope some of this stuff helps you with your volunteers. If you’ve got any ideas on any of this stuff, or anything else that helps you with your volunteers, let us know.