STEP 3: Provide additional training
After assessing the skill gaps of our e-volunteers, it’s time to provide them with the necessary training to overcome these gaps. These training opportunities can come in different forms:
- Providing a virtual onboarding training
- Participating in webinars and learning tutorials about a specific topic
- Creating a community of practice
- Peer support from other e-volunteers more experienced
- Participating in virtual job shadowing
- Joining mentorship programs
STEP 4: Ensure quality management
TIP!
Let’s have some fun by watching what it looks like to have good teamwork or bad team work.
STEP 2: Identify the skill gaps
In order to ensure a quality and engaging environment for e-volunteering it’s important to take into account these 4 main ideas
Fostering team spirit – to ensure that e-volunteers feel connected to each other despite working remotely. This may involve regular feedback and evaluation, so e-volunteers can feel motivated to assess their progress and the relevance of their task performance, facilitating regular interaction among different teams within the organization to provide a deeper sense of belonging, or organising regular in-person events or parties to help create bonds between team members in an informal setting.
Ensuring attractive involvement – to boost motivation, by providing both intrinsic motivation (coming from within the team) through offering opportunities to gain knowledge and experience, expand social circles, and use their time with positivity and productivity, and extrinsic (arising from external factors), such as belonging to an organisation with a good standing, or even some material factors such as having the proper tools to work remotely, or being provided with a computer for their e-volunteering.
Building open communication – by providing safe spaces where honest conversation is possible will make it easier to find the causes of the motivation drop and take the proper measurements to solve it.
Offering acknowledgement – in the way of giving some words in a team meeting in a way to thank for a task achieved, by giving a certificate for the quality of the task’s performance, by being on the online wall of volunteers or by organising a yearly e-volunteering day.
- set clear, actionable and SMART goals for the e-volunteers which will give them a sense of purpose and direction.
- define the tasks according to the learning style of the e-volunteers and offer concrete examples of what they are expected to perform.
- ensure their alignment with the organisation’s mission: they should understand your mission and values before onboarding. Involve them in informal activities, such as chat groups, to observe interactions and gather team feedback on their integration.
- maintain regular communication and offer ongoing feedback during onboarding and task completion.
- connect their tasks to the organisation's impact, so both you and they can see the value of their contributions.
- use quantitative metrics (number of tasks completed, quality of work, responsiveness) as straightforward indicators of productivity, and qualitative metrics (feedback from team members, e-volunteers’ flexibility in adjusting to new challenges, surveys, evaluation forms) to monitor and report their performance.
- hold regular check-ins rather than only evaluating at the end of a task and increase trust within the team through one-on-one meetings with each person.