Leah: /* Getting More Volunteers */

2010-12-22T21:46:02Z

Getting More Volunteers

Leah at 21:44, 22 December 2010

2010-12-22T21:44:11Z

Leah: New page: ===Getting More Volunteers=== Here's a list of stuff preventing us from getting more, regular volunteers: * There can be at times very little staff time left over after selling, sorting,...

2010-12-22T21:39:32Z

New page: ===Getting More Volunteers=== Here's a list of stuff preventing us from getting more, regular volunteers: * There can be at times very little staff time left over after selling, sorting,...

New page

===Getting More Volunteers===

Here's a list of stuff preventing us from getting more, regular volunteers:

* There can be at times very little staff time left over after selling, sorting, and putting out fires to coordinate volunteers.
* There are a large number of (individually) simple pieces of information required to be very effective.
* There is very little work where it is visually obvious what to do
* Its easy to make mistakes that require non-trivial amounts of work to fix (often by staff members) [cost of failure is relatively high]
* Store isn't exactly a sexy place to work and dealing with the general public brings an entire suite of demotivators to the plate
* Its often loud
* There are few things currently available for volunteers with physical disabilities to do
* Store volunteers might volunteer only to intercept items they want
* The current store staff is mostly men, potentially a social barrier to getting female volunteers
* Our existing documentation for training volunteers changes every time we get a new person! Do we really need to re-invent the wheel every time?

===Proposed solutions===

* Get more labor into advanced testing first, make more money on component sales, buy more dedicated store labor
* Divide and conquer the sea of rote information. Have 3 divisions of store volunteers: 1) adopter (simple, visual) 2) post build (more advanced, perhaps in conjuction with Tech Support Volunteerism)
* Interns (project based).
* Part of getting adopters involved. Requires just a ton of visual aids, reorganization of stuff to make putting stuff away easier, and perhaps, partial management by interns
* Continue to improve store atmosphere. Develop a rewards system for good volunteering. Keep people-adverse volunteers away from interacting with public by having work for them to do that does not involve interaction with others.
* Develop a fourth division of labor for volunteers with physical disabilites. Have a space available for them to be productive.
* Actively recruit women into the store for volunteering
* Improve documentation within an agreed-upon framework, perhaps through the division of labor mentioned above (really you would just need adopter-specific tools and post-build specific tools).

===Dependencies===
* More money and the priority for it to be spent on us
* Much planning, experimentation, and tweaking
* Visual aids, simple flow charts, and simple documentation
* Sound dampening materials and design

[[Category: Big Picture]]

[[Category: Long Term Planning]]

[[Category: Thrift Store]]

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 * Visual aids, simple flow charts, and simple documentation
 * Sound dampening materials and design
 [[Category: Big Picture]]

General Issues Store Folken Need to Work On - Revision history

Leah: /* Getting More Volunteers */

Leah at 21:44, 22 December 2010

Leah: New page: ===Getting More Volunteers=== Here's a list of stuff preventing us from getting more, regular volunteers: * There can be at times very little staff time left over after selling, sorting,...