Retaining your volunteers

Now you have your volunteers, you need to make sure that you keep them and the best way to keep them is to make them feel wanted.

Good team managers know that to get the best out of their team they need to provide:

Motivation
A clear focus on objectives
Recognition of achievements and performance
Training and support to develop skills
Team building activities

Take a few minutes to think about your volunteer team and ask yourself the following questions:

Is the team still up to full strength?
If not,why have people opted out? Overload? Boredom? Wrong job? Personal reasons?
Are they working well as a team?
Is the work being shared out or are one or two people doing more than their fair share?
Are jobs being delegated appropriately, or are one or two people holding on to jobs?
Are there any gaps in the team, perhaps some skills that are missing?
How would you describe the team spirit? Are they a happy team of people with what they are doing and working on together?
What do you think of the way in which you lead the team?
Are people in the right positions?
Are you using their skills, time and enthusiasm in the best way?

What about individuals?

How are they performing?
Are they still doing the job that they expected to do or that you want them to do - or has it grown into something else?
Are they enjoying their involvement?
Do they have the potential to take on more or are they already feeling overloaded?
Would some one-to-one support or skill development help them do even better?

How are you doing?

Look at yourself as a Cricket Volunteer Coordinator:

Are you enjoying your role?
What do you think you are doing well?
What, if anything ,would you want to improve about the way in which you carry out your role?

List one or two action points that will make the job more enjoyable, or help you to do it even better.

Hopefully things are going well and the answers to these questions are mostly positive. You may be aware of one or two problem areas and may have some ideas about how to address these problems.