Further articles Risk Management for Trustees New Volunteer Mentoring Scheme
The Craft of Volunteer Placement gets Injection of New Technology
Commercial recruitment software will streamline Reach services to volunteers and organisations
Matching the skills, experience and aspirations of volunteers to the specific individual needs of thousands of UK charities and community groups lies at the heart of Reach’s work. At its London offices on the south bank of the Thames, the organisation’s team of skilled and experienced ‘volunteering advisers’ devote their time to ensuring that the most suitable people are introduced to organisations in need of volunteer help. Now, with the introduction of new cutting-edge software, they are being equipped to provide a faster, more flexible and more responsive service to volunteers and organisations alike.
People like Jennifer Ayto, Reach’s most experienced team member, play a key role in successfully bringing together thousands of volunteers and organisations every year. She’s been a volunteer herself for the past decade and, as a former head of personnel at BT, her own professional skills and experience are ideally suited to her role at Reach.
Jennifer began bringing together volunteers and organisations just about the time that a new computerised system, designed specifically to assist in the brokerage process, was being introduced by the organisation.
‘At the time it was state of the art’ Jennifer recalls. ‘It had been created especially for us and represented a big improvement on the manual system that had been used previously. Without it we simply wouldn’t have been able to cope with the growth in demand for our services over the years. But over time we reached the limits of what it could deliver.’
In May and June 2010, Reach is re-equipping its volunteering placement team with a new professional software system known as RDB ProNet. The person responsible for overseeing the investment is Reach’s Head of Operations, Steve Szumski.
‘Our new software enables us to offer a more flexible and responsive service to volunteers and organisations’, says Steve. ‘Our previous system helped us deliver an effective service, this new system will allow new service standards to be set for the future.
‘With its replacement, we will be able to respond far more effectively both to changes in technology and volunteering itself. For example, we will be able to produce a skills list for volunteer applications which we will be able to constantly update and keep relevant. We will be including relatively new skills like web design for the first time and expanding the single category that previously covered all IT skills.
‘In terms of customer service’, adds Steve, ‘ we will now be able to give all the support that you would expect from a modern volunteer recruitment agency.’
Thanks to the new software, the registration for volunteers and organisations will be a simpler and clearer process. From June, web-based registration will be possible for our volunteers and, from August, organisations will be able to use it too. All registered users will be able to create their own online profiles which they can manage themselves. The system will give Reach the capability to accept CVs and offer additional services such as arranging interviews and providing volunteers with maps of where opportunities are based. And organisations will no longer be required to re-submit information about themselves every time they register a new volunteering opportunity.
‘There is no doubt that the job of finding volunteers for organisations will be done more effectively’, says Steve. ‘As this aspect of their work becomes more efficient, our volunteer matchers will have more time to offer support in other ways, perhaps helping organisations to target volunteers more effectively or following up on introductions.’
That is welcome news to Jennifer Ayto and her colleagues who were only too aware of the limitations of the old computer system. ‘Waiting around for things to work was becoming very frustrating,’ recalls Jennifer. ‘The process is being made faster and more efficient. I hope I will have the opportunity to use my knowledge and experience in a more proactive way, to go looking for good matches.
‘For example, I recently registered a computer expert as a volunteer whose skills I thought would be ideal for one of our organisations that provides computer assistance to disabled people. Although they did not have a vacancy registered with us at the time I contacted the organisation anyway and now both they and the volunteer are working together and are delighted I linked them up.
‘That felt very fulfilling’, says Jennifer, ‘and it’s the sort of thing I would like to do more of in the future’.