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In general they also don't need your sporadic untrained volunteer time either. The volunteering events that HR departments love to organize where employees earn
by ralph84 5y ago
In general they also don't need your sporadic untrained volunteer time either. The volunteering events that HR departments love to organize where employees earning six figures spend hours on make work always strike me as an incredibly inefficient way to actually help people in need.
- mssundaram 5y agoFeel good virtue signaling
- dehrmann 5y agoI'm not the volunteering type, but I went to a work-arranged event where we tutored kids. I ended up feeling mostly guilty after doing it because it would be better for these kids to have ongoing mentoring by the same person than a revolving pool of tech randos.
- gscott 5y agoSometimes it is just that many randos care at all that matters, and that inspires a person to feel that they matter because you care.
- spfzero 5y agoSo true. I helped out sorting produce at a food bank for a company organized event. Clearly we were an imposition on the workers there who were far more efficient and then pulled away to spend a half hour training us to do their job poorly for three hours. Great for coverage in the company newsletter though.
- ethbr0 5y agoI'd give a call-out to Habitat for Humanity in the US (providing lower-cost homes to qualifying families). From the builds I've worked, they seem more than happy to exploit your muscle and tell you exactly what needs doing. It helps that home construction is mostly repetitive (nail this way, 100 times). Also, surprise finding that about 1/4 of IT colleagues don't know how to drive a nail.
- thomasjudge 5y ago1/4 seems low
- pavel_lishin 5y agoI'm probably one of the people who thinks they know how to do it, but in reality don't.
- ethbr0 5y agoImho, it's mostly the right weight hammer + accuracy. Sadly, the latter of those lessons was personally learned only through the smashing of many a finger, to the tune of my grandfather's amused laughing.
- sunstone 5y agoThat's where nailers come in handy. Using a hammer is kind of like coding on an Apple II.
- spfzero 5y agoGreat organization there, and the people donating time do actually work enough hours to amortize the training time. It’s less useful from a corporate publicity standpoint though because of the time investment. Plus your employees are being trained into an opportunity for work that may be more satisfying and still decently paid, and then leave.
- _qwfv 5y agoSometimes you do just need bodies to move dirt or spread mulch or stuff envelopes or whatever. Obviously the phenomena you describe is real, but please don't write off volunteering as a whole.
- varajelle 5y agoOr you could do your normal work for 100$/hours, then donate that to pay two people at 50$/hours to do it. By spending the same amount of time, you helped twice as much.
- dash2 5y agoThe question is then, why do organisations ask for volunteers? They could just appeal for money and pay for people to e.g. rattle tins. Maybe having volunteers signals something to the public, e.g. that the charity is doing good work.
- techsupporter 5y agoHaving been part of an org that asked for volunteers, we did it for two reasons: First, to try to have a pool of repeat volunteers who we could rely on. In any other context, we would call these people "employees" but we ran on such a shoestring we couldn't pay everyone for all of their labor. Sucks, but such is the nature of the non-profit world outside of the glossy donor magazines. Most of these generous souls were recruited from friends and family or were people who'd received services from us in the past. Second, is for advertising and to drum up support. People are far more likely to donate to a group they've volunteered with, even once, in the past as they feel a sense of ownership over the organization's outcome. Those "bring a bunch of six-figure salary folks to a group to pack boxes for a few hours?" They tended to result in some of the best donations we received for the whole year.
- mjevans 5y agoFree Staff? Is there another term for this that's proper and also doesn't imply compensation?
- peteretep 5y agoThey do however love the opportunity to grow a sense of loyalty and investment in people earning six figures
- hrktb 5y agoI’d see those as one day internship to get to know an organization and what they do day to day. The same way as companies allow kids to come to “do” their parent’s work for one day, it’s more of a PR move + keeping your org in touch with people from different culture/positions.
- viztor 5y agoI think the volunteer time is not helping either, but there is more to it, through involvement that those people (we) have a understanding of the issues at hand that simply can't be replaced by promotional brochures and other forms of advertisement, which often just seems distant.
- failwhaleshark 5y agoIt's virtue signaling how "kind" and "generous" they are. I'm sure all the sociopaths and psychopaths love to participate to burnish their images.
- jefftk 5y agoCharities run these sort of events primarily as fundraising. People who have spent some time volunteering are way more likely to donate and continue donating. It's common that it costs the charity more to supervise the untrained company people than it would to hire for the tasks, but it's still positive when you factor in future funding.
- ourmandave 5y agoOur local minor league baseball team supports fund raisers by having the charity's volunteers work the concession stand for a night for a percentage. That's how I spent 4 hours making roller dogs one Sat night. The few regular crew does set up and tear down while the manager has a stressful evening herding cats. =)