Compensation and the Volunteer Manager

I’m not sure is this applies to volunteer managers in the US, but in the UK (particularly in the public sector), the process of ensuring robust ‘job evaluation’ for all roles is commonplace. This was a reaction by public sector employers to protect themselves from claims under the Equal Pay Act (1970), which has been subsequently replaced by the Equality Act (2010). http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1811 Therefore, over 40 years of management effort has been spent on ensuring people cannot claim that they are not being paid fairly, according to their job role/description. This process tends to focus on a number of cross-cutting themes, and evaluates each role against them. For example check out page 71 on the NHS Employers job evaluation handbook (link below) http://www.nhsemployers.org/Aboutus/Publications/Documents/NHS_Job_Evaluation_Handbook_third_edition.pdf Also, check the previous 50 pages that show how robust the process is!! This example in the NHS in the UK demonstrates that volunteer managers will be remunerated according to their value. Also there is a national membership organisation for volunteer managers working within the NHS (NAVSM), which is bound to be protecting the right of their members and ensuring the NHS guidance is appropriate for volunteer management. Also, other organisations without such well-developed job-evaluation processes (e.g. within the wider the voluntary and community sector) will tend to benchmark against public sector pay awards, as they will be recognised as safe. Therefore, if the volunteer management community in the UK wishes to increase the remuneration for volunteer managers, the likes of NAVSM need to be encouraging NHS employers to 'up the stakes' in the requirement of job-holders. For example, to "have a bachelor's degree and at least 5 years of experience in the field or in a related area" (as cited in the above article). http://www1.salary.com/Volunteer-Services-Director-salary.html#JD I’m not sure however, that there is a co-ordinated effort in this direction, by volunteer manager membership organisations in the UK.

Great article- thanks for putting it together all in one place, especially with the recommendations for change. I have found that the impact of the volunteers has the most punch but the documentation has to be thought out ahead of time. If the Administrator of Volunteers has documentation of the impact of the adult learning to read in terms of how that will impact the community and the impact of a patient in chemo having a hand held in terms of patient care as well as long term affiliation to the medical center, then the administrator seems to hear more. That means have to plan for the capturing of the data. Therein lies the challenge.