Volunteering – team building – Acting Communities

Team building starts right from the moment one enters the institution. Not only does working in a team increase the efficiency of the work to be done, it also gives a sense of security. I know that I have someone to rely on; if I get stuck, I can ask for help. There are many variations to solve problems. If I see the performance of those around me, I can put my performance, encouragement, and help with quality work on the scale based on their past experiences.

Tip: From the moment of entry, the Bródy Sándor Library strives to be constantly involved in the library community with new employees, public employees or volunteers and to show them where they are located in the life of the library.

“If there is a fortunate situation to have more volunteers applying for a job at the library at the same time, they start their training with a team-building training. Introductions are also made through networking communication games, including team building. An excellent tool for getting to know the library spaces and workflows is the library tour. We imagine this as an ‘steeplechase’ where the ‘stations’ are the library departments. In libraries, a librarian colleague informs groups about basic library knowledge: storage order, storage features, and types of documents stored in departments. They will then have to deal with what they are hearing, using the group’s creativity.

Types of tasks: finding books on the shelf by the store label in the rental rooms of the Central Library; deciphering Gárdonyi’s cipher using the writer’s encoding in the Local Knowledge Collection, finding CDs, DVDs in the Music Collection, using dictionaries in the Foreign Language Collection, and try their skill at the Collection Organiser Department for how many book corners are glued to books in 1 minute.

Team building continues during work. The volunteers are involved in the preparation of the events, where they can get information not only on their own work but also on the work of specialist librarians. We invite them to an end-of-year collaborative meeting before Christmas to find out how the library progresses is and what goals it has for next year. They can take part in the librarian association’s leisure programmes (walks in the Bükk mountain, bicycle tours).

In this way, they are more aligned with goals, more efficient in their work, and find their place in the institutional hierarchy. Meanwhile, the building of a ‘community spirit’ and a sense of belonging to the community can be felt.”

At the institutional level, when we combine the volunteer programme with volunteer team building, we get stronger through our work. The most important thing to do is to find timely and appropriate opportunities.

The goal of team building is to create a good team spirit, which is based on creating a good workplace atmosphere that also contributes to indirectly improving performance. The starting point for building a team is the application of empirically clear, proven, jointly worked out methods, which require the use of mutually agreed arrangements and their consistent application, and corrections where necessary.

Why should we have a volunteer team?

It is in the interest of each institution to build a cohesive, committed team of volunteers. The motivation of volunteers is often that they stay with an institution for a long time because they feel comfortable in the community. According to them, the need and feeling of belonging to a team and community is an important motivation factor for them.

The need to become a team may stem from:

the institution,
the volunteer coordinator,
the volunteers.

Professional team building trainings are often organised for the volunteers, the employees and the volunteers, often from the institutional side, usually from above. If the institution has a well-established team building programme or a family day, it is worth inviting volunteers to join them, as this will allow paid workers and volunteers to meet and get to know each other. It is also the primary interest and responsibility of the coordinator to guide volunteers well, which is often easier to do if you have a cohesive team. The most interesting are the ‘grassroots’ community events that volunteers bring to life, even outside the institution. It is a gratifying result for volunteers to organise joint programmes, as it is a hallmark of a well-functioning team and a good community that acts as a motivating factor for many. Such initiatives may also be supported by the institution (if requested). For example: if volunteers organise their own ‘club’ (e.g.: craft club, bookworm club), the institution can provide them with a venue.

Remember that community bonding events not only increase motivation but are also a great way to appreciate volunteers!

What do we consider team building?

In the broadest sense, team building is all about spending time together, whether it’s fun, wellness, sports, or anything else. However, it is not certain that a high-spirited event can in itself influence group processes. One of the most important goals of team building is to focus on teamwork, build trust and a bond with each other, and to have an impact on communication and collaboration. The improvement of team performance can be a tangible result of team building, but in our case the criterion is to increase the level of trust and commitment within the group.

The goals and benefits of team building are:

helps to build relationships, strengthen co-workers,
makes interpersonal interactions more effective, improves team communication,
aligns with organisational goals, ideally with the mission,
more efficient tasks performance,
helps discover, develop and utilise the dormant and untapped capabilities of your staff,
ideally the organisational mission has a subordinate purpose to team building,
increases team performance,
increases responsibility of the team members,
better working environment,
faster response times, more creative and innovative problem solving can be expected from team members.

Step by step team building

There are three basic factors that define a team: common desires, specific goals, and clear rules. [1] When a new team is formed, the most important thing is for the team members to get to know each other.

Changes in power relations within the team take place during the team identity search phase. It is worthwhile to look at, rearrange and possibly map the strength of the team at the beginning, during and at the end of new tasks with a sociometric survey.

The Tuckman team dynamics model [2], which has 5 phases, may help to understand the evolution of power relations:

formation of the team (forming)
testing of power relations, time of conflict and contention (storming)
establishment of norms (norming)
fulfilment and effective work period (performing)
reshaping phase, especially when new members arrive or old ones leave (re-forming)

Schattenhofer/König [3] further developed this model and reported a kind of pendulum effect and cyclicality. Comfortable, pleasant periods alternate with tense periods, with ever greater swings. The coordinator can best fulfil their role as a team leader if they strengthens the current direction, the negative or the positive wave.

Tip: At the time the Volunteer Programme of the Museum of Fine Arts’ was established in September 2006, there was no uniform set of written rules for volunteers. The coordinator corrected this deficiency in the form of a Volunteer Manual, by providing a draft manual for consultation to the volunteers involved approx. two months after the establishment of the team. One of them, in a quick email reply, expressed dismay that the organisation even wanted to regulate volunteering. However, thanks to the e-mail, the reactions of other team members soon followed, most of them confirming the need to regulate the programme. Thus, in the above case, phases 1-3 at the time of formation took approx. three months.

We believe that every team needs a clear description of what their purpose and mission is. As can be seen from the example: when the team is faced with challenges, it starts to create a solution together, it starts to merge together. For this, it is important to agree on common goals, rules, appropriate example and follow a common communication style. Cohesiveness helps when the prospects are clear: the team leader should have a team strategy and plan for the future. Each process should be preceded by an evaluation, which includes a summary of the positives, lessons learned, and a clear statement of the necessary corrections.

After that, it is worth putting the clear results into practice.

After the establishment of a volunteer team, conscious team building is important, and this process is preceded by a mapping of needs. The challenge of team building is to understand how the team works.

The role of leaders in team building

An effective team needs a supportive environment. They need different skills, purposefulness, and team members need to communicate with each other and learn from interaction. The establishment and building of a team is a long process; it is used to discover how they are working together currently, if there are any sources of error and if so, then where, and how cooperation could work in an ideal situation. The team builder is constantly tasked with monitoring (assessing) non-verbal signals and integrating their analysis (meaning interpretation) into the problem solving process.

Team building tips

Team building games should also be included in volunteer preparation training to help volunteers get to know each other better and develop volunteers from the beginning of the programme.
It is worth organising a volunteer meeting at the end of the year or after reaching a milestone. This is both an expression of appreciation and a great opportunity to build community, as volunteers also need each other’s company.

Tip: For example, at the Szentendre Skansen volunteers visit an exhibit in another museum at least once a year and are invited to a lunch at the end of the year to say thank you for their work throughout the year.

Inviting volunteers to community programmes within the institution (family day, team building, Christmas reception for staff)
Volunteering Newsletter This regular newsletter (monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, etc.), published online or in print, can serve several functions. A good opportunity to meet volunteers and / or paid staff working in the same field is to give them a chance to introduce themselves and tell about themselves and their work. The newsletter may contain articles of a volunteer task or action complete with photos, but it may also cover important news or issues affecting our institution (e.g.: new exhibition, event, etc.).
The organisation of professional tours combined with leisure activities and training brings the team together. Beyond mere workplace relationships, there can also be a stronger bond established due to the openness and skills of team members (consisting of volunteers and paid staff) provided by the professional programmes
The institutions can also organise and provide further training for volunteers through collaboration.

References:

[1] Mitől lesz hatékony a csapatépítés? HR Portal. 2010, Budapest, Brand & Standard Capital Tanácsadó és Szolgáltató Kft. https://www.hrportal.hu/hr/mitol-lesz-hatekony-a-csapatepites- 20101011.html (utoljára megtekintve: 2018.08.06.)
[2] Gruppendynamik. Wikipedia Die freie Enzyklopädie. 2017, San Francisco, Wikimedia Foundation Inc. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruppendynamik (utoljára megtekintve: 2018.08.06.)
[3] SOTE egyetemi előadáson elhangzottak alapján

This article based on the following document: This article based on the following document: Practical Guide for the Establishment and Operation of Volunteer Programmes at Institutions : abridged English version