Wake Up Call

Harnessing the Human Capital of Volunteers

Why despite the heavy demands of family life and work for those who are employed, volunteers still find time to attend meetings; lend helping hand to Filipinos/as in need; and provide assistance in many community activities? On the other hand, it also happens and it is already happening that some organizations regardless of their orientations or focus activities, the number of their active members who are willing to assume responsibilities is rapidly dwindling. What keep volunteers stay and what hold them back from getting more involved?

I came across a book title Human Capital[1]written by Thomas Davenport, principal of TowersPerrin, a consulting firm specializing in Human Resources. I had also the opportunity to attend his lectures in Rotterdam. Davenport points out that in the corporate world many companies claim that their employees are their most important assets. But the metaphor “workers as assets” Davenport argues while it represents a worthy elevation of employees to the status they deserve being people after all, are the chief engine of prosperity of organizations, is outdated and misguided. Assets refer to tangible things such as office equipment, furniture and fixtures, buildings, etc. They are at the ready disposal of the company. They can either be used or abused. A better metaphor, Davenport says, to worker employees should be more free agent owners of investable capital. Their capital is the ability, behavior, effort, and time they contribute to a company.

While reading Human Capital, I transposed my mind to my experiences in working with volunteers and as a volunteer myself. We also call the volunteers as assets of the organizations. There are similarities indeed between the employees as human capital investors as described by Davenport and the volunteers. The latter brings different human drives, energies, talent, treasures, skills, time, and motivations to the organizations as well. The only difference between volunteers and employees is that the former do not receive remunerations and tangible rewards for the services they render. In the absence of tangible rewards, the burning questions remain: What keep the volunteers then stick to their organizations? If they invest time, talent, and treasure, what is their return on investment (ROI)?

Davenport explains that attractive salaries and fringe benefits alone are not enough for the company to find and hire their best people. They must have engagement and commitment. Engagement can be defined in various ways but it is best summed up as a sense of identification with interest in, and enjoyment of the activities associated with the content and results of work. People with high engagement, Davenport describes, are those who care a lot about what they do; they may or may not care about where they do it.

This differ somewhat, says Davenport, from the related notion of people commitment which has more to do with a sense of connection to the organization itself, acceptance of its goals and direction, and a strong need for membership. Commitment arises from an emotional, social, or intellectual bond linking with the organization. Thus, one may be committed but not necessarily engaged. The other believes in the principle of the organization but is not prepared or willing to do or have less time to achieve organizational goals. Thus, commitment is the driver to join the organization, while engagement is the act of transforming ideas and vision into reality.

But what does it take to build engagement and commitment? Davenport says that contributions to reach engagement and commitment are found on the non-traditional reward areas of work environment and learning and development such as:

1) Satisfying and challenging work
2) Developmental assignments to provide learning opportunities
3) Opportunities to advance in various fields
4) Performance feedback and coaching
5) Effective leadership
6) Recognition programs that reflect achievements
7) Variable rewards that meet needs

The right kind of environment and rewards help produce commitment and engagement that in turn, encourage investment of human capital on the part of workers and enhance performance.

Using Davenport’s arguments to migrant work situation, I am wondering if the dwindling interest of volunteers lies on the fact that they are not attended and supported adequately to enhance their human capital. Regretfully, most of us who are engaged in volunteer migrant work do not have adequate skills yet to analyze deeper the human aspect of volunteer work. But serious attempts can be done to use the tool kits developed by Davenport and apply them to our work.

We have to search answers to the following questions:

1) Why there seems to be lack of interest of new members to assume more responsibilities that current leaders are forced to prolong their term of office?
2) Do the members really identify themselves with the goals and objectives of the organization and at the same time are the outflow of diverse ideas and approaches being encouraged? If they do and yet they remain non-engaged, then perhaps organizations do not have the needed organizational environment which motivates members to invest their human capital.
3) Does the organization provide the necessary learning activities and programs to develop its members?
4) Why there are so many committed members – those who accept the goals and direction of the organization – and yet only a handful is engaged? Do they really identify with the goals and objectives of the organizations or they just express the needs of others? What about their own peculiar needs and aspirations?
5) What organizational environmental and development should organizations create to encourage volunteers to invest their human capital?

I have been talking with some volunteers to find out how they see themselves as volunteers. The following are some of their answers:

1) Involving with migrant organizations have helped them find their own self-worth and provide opportunities for self-development which they could not get in their home situation.
2) Spending time with co-Filipinos eases the feeling of homesickness.
3) By doing volunteer work, they can make use of their skills and talents to help the overseas Filipinos air out their issues and concerns.
4) Some simply like doing migrant work but have not thought of yet about the deeper meaning of their involvement.
5) It is simply fun to be with compatriots or they have nothing else meaningful to do.
6) Commitment to the cause especially to those who are politically oriented.

I also asked those who are not quite active anymore and those who are contemplating of taking a low profile, how come that they are no longer as active as before. Their answers are:

1) Family demands. There are small and teenage children to attend to.
2) Family and work allow very little time for volunteer work. Volunteer work is stressful and time-consuming.
3) Setting new priorities in life. Plans to study, to find jobs, etc.
4) Other members are no longer active which demotivates leaders t continue with their work knowing that implementation of the activities will lie on their shoulders alone.
5) Internal conflict in the organization and the constant arguments and bickering without reaching constructive solutions that meetings no longer mean anything which members can look forward to with great anticipation.
6) Individual proposals, needs, and ideas are not adequately responded to.
7) Blurred perspectives. Activities are too issue-oriented but less practical actions that produce concrete results are being undertaken.
8) Leadership styles and differences in approaches and methods of work.
9) Poor health. Illness in the family or simply burnt out.
10) Lack or recognition. You try your best and yet what he or she is doing is never good enough. Constant pressures from peers to do more, to do better but for what?
11) Unfounded accusations and criticisms by some people who do not understand their work.
12) Jealousy. Mistrust. Lack of team spirit.
13) Lack of new leaders who will assume responsibilities.
14) Differences in social and political orientations. Values.


There are many more reasons. It seems to me the answers I gathered are reasonable and understandable enough. Nobody says openly though that they are no longer committed to their respective organizations. They still are only reluctant to assume more responsibilities. Instead of accepting the answers as they are, I believe concerned leaders and members must find ways and means to study and explore practicable solutions to the expressed needs and problems.

Davenport offers useful insights on how to find and keep valuable and performing employees. Could we do the same in our migrant work? Perhaps, we need to reinvent volunteer migrant work. Jonas Riddersråle and Kjell Nordström, both teaching at Stockholm School of Economics and author of Funky Business[2], say that “reinvention is not changing what it is but creating what is not. Reinvention entails a series of continuous metamorphosis of this magnitude over time.”

We should put back the pleasant environment in our groups to make members feel at ease and make meetings and implementation of activities events to look forward to whether to plan for the next social activity or to discuss serious migrant issues and concerns. We should bring back the fun and the spirit of camaraderie during meetings for without this pleasant and relaxed ambience people will be discouraged to attend meetings so they can avoid more unpleasant confrontations. Since we rely so much on the goodwill of volunteers, we also have to find out how we can improve the organizational environment in such a way that volunteers could keep their enthusiasm. In the past workshops I attended, it has been expressed several times that leveling of awareness and understanding of goals and objectives are necessary to motivate members. This is true but only a small part of the whole complex process in insuring success of the organization. We need to go beyond than just awareness building. For what use would it be if someone understands the goals and objectives of the organizations and yet the how of doing is weak and confusing? The process becomes the message.

Little has been done too, in providing the volunteers with a road map, a hands-on guide and training on how to manage their respective organizations; on how to plan, implement, monitor, evaluate, and report their agreed objectives and programs; on how to raise funds; improve communications skills; team building, etc. Most workshops always focus on the long-term objectives, ideals, issues, and concerns of overseas Filipinos but less time is being spent on the methods on how to achieve them. Let us face the fact that advocating issues and concerns of the overseas Filipinos is laudable but active leaders and members who are engaged in advocacy and lobby work are generally not the direct beneficiaries of the campaigns in the short term. Poverty alleviation takes place in the Philippines not in the Netherlands. Most volunteers are permanent residents who are quite integrated in the Dutch society and stable enough that is why they have the time to do volunteer work.

It is quite understandable for the volunteers to expect short-term tangible results and at the same time hope to gain new skills and knowledge in the process. Volunteers need a large amount of inspiration to be able to plan for the next short-term activity while they aim for the long-term goals of the organizations. By focusing activities only on the long-term targets which results usually may or may not happen only after a considerable length of time. They have grown tired and burnt out. The flipside of this is the danger if too much concentration is given on immediate and short-term results. Volunteers become eventually myopic and will soon loss sight of the whole perspective of migrant work and the deeper meaning why they are engaged in spontaneous actions and small-scale activities. All activities must reinforce and fit in perfectly into the whole strategy of migrant work like jigsaw puzzles. In short, we must be able to distinguish the trees from the forest. We must have a long-term vision.

Most of the volunteers are not prepared when they assume their new tasks. They have the commitment but they lack the necessary skills. This poses problems in the future. If the volunteers are properly trained, guided, and prepared adequately for their new tasks and responsibilities, we could at least help them not to commit major failures. We can prevent them from being exposed to criticisms that unless constructively and tactfully resolved, may dampen their spirits that may provoke them to give up volunteer work. If volunteers are adequately prepared, they will learn how to overcome and deal with difficulties while implementing their assigned tasks with less stress and pressure. If they could deal with the immediate tasks and goals with much ease, the more they can sustain their enthusiasm to work for the long terms ones. If all these conditions are met, unnecessary frustrations, dissatisfaction, decrease in self-worth, and “lost-at-sea” feeling which partly attribute to the waning interest of the volunteers to assume more responsibilities can be timely avoided. Above all, by preventing unnecessary conflict, the whole organization and the other members will not suffer.

We are aware that the strong bond that binds the volunteers together could snap out anytime but we cannot really take the blame on anybody else for this. Leaders and members alike who are engaged in migrant work have to start practically from the scratch. We all have to undergo on-the-job training, learn and improve from our failures and successes as we go along. We learn to stand up after we fall and to grapple with complex human interactions and dynamics within the organization. We re-inspire ourselves after committing mistakes and undergoing painful experiences. I am aware every active leader and member who have committed to volunteer work have experienced in one way or the other some moments of doubts whether it is worth carrying on with volunteer work or not. Some have recovered unscathed, unfortunately, some have not.

Volunteer work must provide opportunities for the volunteers to develop themselves, and acquire new knowledge and skills. They help migrant community at the same time they develop themselves. We must break the patron-beneficiary relationship; that one sacrifices for the sake of the other. We should avoid volunteer saying “I spend my time selflessly to serve the migrant community and this is all what I get!” It should be a win-win situation. That is why I believe volunteers must understand first and foremost what return on investment they expect in doing volunteer work considering the diversity of their aspirations and whether they can achieve this by committing and engaging themselves in migrant work. I do believe that volunteers understand it fully well that migrant organizations could not offer tangible or monetary rewards. But there must be a reason that keeps them going. But is it really possible to have ROI in migrant organizations work albeit not in terms of tangible rewards? There must be and they are in various forms, otherwise volunteers will not stick to migrant work. We have find out arduously what they are and try to enhance them.

I wish I have really answers to the questions but I do not have. I myself is in pursuit of the answers of these troubling questions. Sharing experiences and reflections of people involved in migrant work might be of help to come up with a collective solution of the problem and that is the purpose of this article.

Despite its known weaknesses, volunteer work among the Filipino community in the Netherlands has already gone a long way. Volunteers keep the community alive and vibrant. Living and dynamic organizations are those that are capable of gathering and bonding talented, creative people, who are excited and motivated, who trust the organization and are inspired by what they do. Volunteers are people who constantly search for meaning and they have a soul. These tenets must be used as the basis for putting volunteers and their human capital at the center of organizational strategy. However, if the decreasing interest of the leaders and members to invest their human capital persists, migrant organizations in the Netherlands and elsewhere regardless what they do or what they believe in – social, spiritual, cultural, political, charitable, developmental, etc. – will soon face a leadership vacuum and organizational crisis.

If we value volunteers as the backbone and human capital investors of the organizations, we must listen and respond to their needs and aspirations. If no attention will be given to them, volunteer organizations will not last long. I have already seen the rise and fall of many migrant organisations. This is a wake up call.

[1] Human Capital by Thomas Davenport, Jossey-Bass, 1999
[2] Funky Business, Jonas Riddersråle and Kjell Nordström
ft.com/Pearson Education, 2000

2000

Author's Note: Happily, at present migrant organisations in the Netherlands have already many opportunities to attend capacity building training. Dutch development agencies also realized the need to develop the capacities of migrant organisations to ensure success of their initiatives.

July 28, 2007