High Skills Research

Integrated Human Resource Strategy
Learnings & Implications from the
High Skills Volunteer Research Pilot Project

Overview

In recognizing the changing demographic trends in the voluntary sector in the coming years, voluntary organizations will be continually challenged to build their organizational capacity with limited resources. In 2007, Volunteer Calgary commissioned a research study examining how to most effectively utilize high skills volunteers. Tremendous opportunity exists to utilize specific professional skills of volunteers in an integrated human resource strategy to assist voluntary organizations in achieving their mission. Ideally, voluntary sector organizations will structure their operations and adopt a culture that fully involves volunteers and paid staff of all skill levels, in all aspects of the organizations´ operations through strategic planning and implementation of these plans. In essence, organizations will adopt an integrated human resource strategy.

Key Learnings from the project

What is an integrated human resource strategy?
An Integrated human resource strategy is a strategically planned approach to identifying the work functions that need to be accomplished in organizations and involving people, whether paid or unpaid, to perform the work needed to achieve the organization's mission. An integrated human resource strategy assumes that “high skilled” or “professionally skilled” individuals can be engaged in organizations by offering their skills and knowledge in both a paid and volunteer capacity. An integrated human resource strategy is not only viable, but will increasingly become a necessity for voluntary organizations to be sustainable. Organizations will have to attract and retain both paid and unpaid staff (volunteers) and further create a reputation for offering a workplace where people can gain satisfaction from their work regardless of whether they are paid.

What is “High Skills” Volunteers?

At the onset of the pilot project, participating organizations seemed willing to use the term high skills volunteer to describe a pool of people who held professional or specialized skills that were developed over their career, and were associated with strategic organizational management. As the pilot progressed, the validity of the term came into question and a resulting broadening of the definition developed based on the context of their organizations. Additional terms that have emerged post research have been “professionally skilled” or “specifically skilled”.

Implications from the Research Findings

1. Essential Strategic Leadership
In order for an integrated human resource strategy approach to be successful in an organization, the Executive Director must champion a culture and organizational structure that supports the full integration of high skills volunteers. The Executive Director, in his/her role as agent of change, is critical to the success of an integrated human resource strategy approach. Those organizations in the pilot project who had the support of their Executive Directors had more success at applying the learning and developing practices that began to support an integrated human resource strategy approach in the workplace.

2. Role and Place of the Manager of Volunteers
The need for a manager of volunteers as a member of the paid staff complement and as a member of the senior management team is required to effectively and strategically involve volunteers into all aspects of the organization. Managers of Volunteers need to have a direct link or working relationship with the Executive Director and the financial resources to perform their work.

3. Professionally Managed Volunteer Programs
A professionally managed volunteer program with systems, policies and processes needs to be in place in order for an integrated human resource strategy to be implemented. The systems, policies and processes for paid and unpaid staff need to be directly aligned.

4. Valuing Volunteers
Volunteers and staff need to understand the “value” that volunteers contribute to the organization. An integrated human resource strategy may be instrumental in overcoming the outdated perceptions of “I am/you are just a volunteer” and improve the way in which organizations value every one of their human resources.

5. Readiness for an integrated human resource strategy approach
It became evident in the research that an integrated human resource strategy needed to fit into the larger organizational strategic plan for its operational activities and functions. The success of the pilot organizations was limited by the degree to which strategic management capacity already existed in their organizations.

Volunteer Calgary Next Steps

Volunteer Calgary will be working with its member organizations to involve high skills volunteers and will continue to do research in this area. The high skills volunteer research work at Volunteer Calgary is directly linked to an “executive director engagement strategy”. For more information on these initiatives, please contact Laurel Benson, President & CEO at 403-231-1444.

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