In volunteer driven organizations, such as the Red Cross, pre-planning is essential in preparing for response to small and large scale disasters. In my role as Community Services Director, I was in charge of recruiting volunteers to support our day to day operations and staff our disaster services corps. Once the initial interviews, assessments and placements were done, we focused on developing strong teams to staff multiple crucial functions needed during a disaster response. The team leaders set expectations, empowered their teams by providing the appropriate training, process, coaching and developing a culture of trust that helped them become cohesive units (Hill, 1995). These teams were ready to drop things in their daily lives to staff shelters, feed people, provide mental health counseling and engage in other essential administrative volunteer roles (Public Relations, staffing, etc.) necessary in disaster operations. What made these volunteers unique was that they trained in the same way as their volunteer counterparts in other parts of the country, so when a disaster took place, they could easily integrate into other teams who were trained in the same function. Red Cross volunteer teams have the the ability to pre-train for a specific functions, the credibility to execute, and the expertise which makes them ideal examples of transactive memory system groups (Majchrzak, Jarvepaa & Hollingshead, 2007, p. 151). In addition, these volunteers devote time to prepare, train and bond with their teams in advance, so there is a high level of trust which kicks into place in a disaster response.
Unlike the well-organized Red Cross volunteer, another type of volunteer emerges when a disaster strikes and we call them “local disaster or spontaneous volunteers”. These volunteers make up the “emergent groups” studied by Majchrzak, Jarvenpaa & Hollingshead (2007). During a disaster situation, my main function as a Red Cross volunteer is to manage these local/spontaneous volunteers, assess their skill set and place them in positions where they can immediately contribute. In fact, the Red Cross tries to integrate these volunteers into our operations right away since they are members of the community, know the surroundings, have important connections (Majchrzak, Jarvepaa & Hollingshead, 2007) and also need these volunteer assignments to help them feel productive and “heal”. In the days following the 9/11 disaster, our phones were inundated with calls from spontaneous volunteers wanting to fly to New York from California to assist with disaster relief efforts. We first sent our “trained” volunteers and then developed a way to quickly train “spontaneous” volunteers who could commit 3 weeks to support efforts in New York. I actually trained a local volunteer from Palo Alto to manage my office while I was deployed to New York to manage the thousands of local disaster volunteers who were lining up to help. I was shocked to see the lines, but New Yorkers wanted to help, so they stood in line until they were processed and assigned a volunteer spot based on their expertise and availability. I agree with Majchrzak et al. (2007) in that emergent groups are crucial and through our training we focused on helping these groups integrate and be successful.
Emergent volunteers are also very distinct from the regular Red Cross volunteers because their commitment is usually limited to the disaster at hand. They develop “swift trust” based on how effectively and timely they execute tasks. The extension of this trust is limited because they are working with a group of strangers who they probably will never see again (Majchrzak, Jarvepaa & Hollingshead, 2007). Many of these volunteers are highly skilled and have many connections, as in the cases illustrated by Majchrzak et al. (2007), so it was useful to understand how TMS applies to emerging volunteer as well as traditional volunteer groups.
Finally, based on my experience in working with both types of volunteers, my suggestion is to find ways to streamline training to make it accessible to almost everyone prior to and immediately following a disaster. Red Cross has great training modules that can easily be accessed through local chapters, so I’d encourage everyone who might consider helping in a disaster situation to visit their local chapter. Even if they take some basic training, they will at least know a bit more about the process than an emergent volunteer and would then easily support disaster relief efforts hand in hand with local disaster volunteers.
References
Hill, L. (1995) Managing Your Team, Harvard Business School, pp. 1-22
Majchrzak, A., Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Hollingshead, A. B. (2007). Coordinating expertise among emergent groups responding to disasters. Organization Science, 18(1), pp. 147-161.
Great post, Adriana. Do the emergent volunteers work along side the Red Cross volunteers? If so, are there difficulties associated with integrating the two types of people? Because you say that the Red Cross volunteers prepare, train, and bond with their teams in advance, does the established TMS get disrupted by these newcomers?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Courtney! Yes to all your questions. The emergent volunteers are processed and assigned to work in functions alongside Red Cross volunteers. The main difficulties in integrating them have to do with key differences between both groups. Most RC volunteers have been trained and follow protocol and some times the emergent volunteers feel restricted by the process in place. For major disasters, many of the trained RC volunteers who deploy for 3 weeks are typically retired folks who spend a great deal of time volunteering whereas most of the emergent volunteers are a bit younger. Fortunately, the fact that emergent volunteers receive training before they are placed helps them adapt and RC volunteers who need the help end up embracing and local disaster volunteers. At the end of the day, their common mission helps them get over any difference or bruised egos, and in very extreme situations, we have a process built in so management can step in. One thing to keep in mind is that the RC volunteers who train together at the local chapters might not end up assigned to the same location in a large scale disaster, so even if they've bonded with their chapter teams, their assignments might not allow them to work together. In these cases, they end up working with other RC volunteers from other chapters as well as with emergent volunteers.
ReplyDeleteFinally, because the roles are so specialized (and not very hard to learn) TMS functions on group response as expected (Majchrzak, Jaevenpaa & Hollingshead, 2007) once emergent groups become part of the larger Red Cross family. You always have the core of RC volunteers who will carry the established TMS (supervisory and front line roles), so I don't think emergent volunteers cause too much disruption.