"Mission driven organisations will have to rethink how they fulfil their goals with a different mix of human talent and skill than they did before." Rob Jackson considers the post-Covid role of volunteers.
Four weeks ago I published a guest post (of sorts) from the late Susan J Ellis. It was a slightly edited version of her 2009 Hot Topic, “When the Axe Falls: Budget Cutting and Volunteers”.
Reading Susan’s eleven-year-old article got me thinking about a piece on job substitution that I wrote for Third Sector magazine in February 2017. In this article, I want to revisit those thoughts with a particular eye to our pandemic affected world, not least because the idea of volunteers doing what was once paid work seems to be the main thrust of calls for furloughed charity workers to volunteer for their employing organisations.
Job substitution is a thorny, complex and emotive issue that provokes strong views. The term ‘job substitution’ itself makes things worse, implying that one volunteer can substitute for one employee, something that, in reality, is both impractical and unrealistic.
Far better terms to use are job displacement and job replacement. The distinctions between displacement and replacement may seem subtle but they are important... Keep reading on Directory of Social Change
Four weeks ago I published a guest post (of sorts) from the late Susan J Ellis. It was a slightly edited version of her 2009 Hot Topic, “When the Axe Falls: Budget Cutting and Volunteers”.
Reading Susan’s eleven-year-old article got me thinking about a piece on job substitution that I wrote for Third Sector magazine in February 2017. In this article, I want to revisit those thoughts with a particular eye to our pandemic affected world, not least because the idea of volunteers doing what was once paid work seems to be the main thrust of calls for furloughed charity workers to volunteer for their employing organisations.
Job substitution is a thorny, complex and emotive issue that provokes strong views. The term ‘job substitution’ itself makes things worse, implying that one volunteer can substitute for one employee, something that, in reality, is both impractical and unrealistic.
Far better terms to use are job displacement and job replacement. The distinctions between displacement and replacement may seem subtle but they are important... Keep reading on Directory of Social Change