The Staff Volunteer identity is used largely by ‘new managers to promote change, and occasionally was used by volunteers to support equity arguments. Volunteers
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As described in the typology ‘new managers’ had managerial experience in other fields, and managerial training, mostly found in ‘Nearly Moderns’ and ‘Moderns’.
were the objects of the identity because it was used mainly by managers to talk about volunteers. The Staff Volunteer identity had two key characteristics:
• volunteers as needing organisational support that was equitable with paid staff, and
• volunteers as organisational members.
Volunteers were aligned with paid employees through the Staff Volunteer identity, which drew on new managerial and equity discourses for framing volunteers. The Staff Volunteer identity positioned volunteers within the organisation, unlike the Moral and Professional Volunteer identities which positioned volunteers within the community. This positioning allowed the Staff Volunteer identity to be used to argue that the organisation was responsible for ambulance volunteers, and that volunteers needed to be covered by adequate policies and safe procedures that were equitable with paid staff.
Equity discourses allowed ‘new managers’ to challenge the inequitable status quo. At the commencement of this study, a lack of policies and procedures for volunteers, different resourcing and different processes for paid and volunteer staff were normalised within services (Fahey, and Walker 2002). By positioning volunteers as staff then factors such as lower levels of organisational resourcing, limited coverage with policies and procedures and less overall support services could be challenged and problematised. The following excerpt problematises the management and resourcing of volunteer services as inequitable:
New manager Anne: I think…this whole issue we’re dealing with right now is one of those issues in that they haven’t wanted to really resource volunteer services. When you look at the organisation in comparison to how they’ve structured the services provided to the metro stations and the number of people-dedicated resources to that part of the workforce which is, I think, half the number….there is a lot more resources for the metro stations and there’s not enough put into the volunteer staff.
Anne positions herself as needing more resources to manage volunteers on the basis that volunteer services are inequitably resourced within the organisation. Responsibility for inadequate resourcing is placed with ‘they’ and in context this is likely to refer to more
traditional executive managers. While the inequity in resourcing between the volunteer and paid services, and between rural and
metropolitan areas are the theme of the text, the managerial interests and the weakness of the ‘new managers’ are also evident.
While the Staff Volunteer identity did assist in gaining extra resources for volunteer services the discourse was still not a dominant one. In the above excerpt it can be seen that Anne does not speak from a position of strength because she exhibits
awkwardness with the topic under discussion. Anne is hesitant, hedges her comments, and uses ‘I think’ frequently which lowers the force of her statements and shows awkwardness in criticising resource issues. So while ‘new managers’ challenged the status quo and drew on equity discourses, they were not speaking from a position of dominance.
While the Staff Volunteer identity supported volunteers they were the objects within the identity and did not have agency to stop this representation. The following excerpt highlights how the Staff Volunteer identity was felt to be in the volunteers interests:
New manager Sally: Very much so, and at times people even still resort back to, “How come we’re reading this and there’s not mention of volunteers?” and it’s because we’ve said time and time again that it’s about our staff and by calling them “staff” we believe that there’s more recognition for them as volunteers because they’re a fundamental part of the business and that’s actually coming from volunteers, that they’re feeling uncomfortable if they don’t see the “v” word.
For ‘new managers’ the Staff Volunteer identity was about organisational change and the need to ‘integrate’ volunteers by developing new policies and structures. The Staff Volunteer identity was therefore linked very strongly to the process of change and to efforts by new managers to improve the resources and processes supporting the volunteer services. It was in the interests of the ‘new managers’ to promote volunteer interests as they were responsible for volunteer services or volunteer management, and therefore had reason to align themselves with volunteer support interests.
Therefore ‘new managers’ argued for volunteer resources, but not necessarily for volunteer interests. As noted in the Professional Volunteer identity, clearly some volunteers had engaged with volunteer work in the hope of a future career in ambulance services, which in most services did not eventuate. In some cases this
was because the volunteer recruitment processes were so different to those for paid staff that they created a barrier to volunteers wanting paid employment. New managers had begun to review this process in ‘Nearly Moderns’ and the following highlights how managers’ interests may overlap but not perfectly align with volunteers’ interests:
New manager Danielle: My wanting to align that Human Resources function is that we can actually maximize, I guess, our potential with more people working together and you’re not actually operating two separate process ‘cause the volunteers get medically assessed, the careers get medically assessed, slightly different! We do recruitment for volunteers, we do recruitment for careers, slightly different because of what’s required but the big problem is for volunteers that then see a career pathway into paid work in [organisation], we actually make it literally impossible for that to happen. So by aligning the processes they’re actually getting exposed to what is the sort of the standard of recruitment selection but made aware of why its higher for career because they’d be lifting and using stretchers a lot more than what they would if they were volunteer, that sort of stuff. So and sort of personality profiling, but we probably, we don’t do with volunteers what we do with career. So the reason for bringing them together is actually to physically, partly give a message, I think, that they both do the same things…
The theme here is improving the career pathway for volunteers into ambulance services, which suggests a promotion of volunteer interests. However, issues can be hidden by foregrounding different matters, in this case expectations were
foregrounded and real career paths hidden. Danielle highlights how differences in volunteer/paid staff recruitment processes are a barrier to volunteers’ employment. But Danielle foregrounds the ‘false expectations’ of volunteers as the problem when she says“…but the big problem is for volunteers that then see a career pathway into paid work…”. The theme of the excerpt is that the different recruitment processes do not allow volunteers to understand the different standards applying for paid staff recruitment processes. The whole issue of some volunteers wanting paid employment and ambulance careers that are inaccessible is skimmed over. By aligning the two processes Danielle suggests it will be easier for volunteers to see the difference in standards. Raised expectations are foregrounded as the problem and not the barriers to volunteers in meeting their interests of paid work through volunteering. ‘New managers’ while bringing changes to services, some of which benefited volunteers, were not actually working to meet volunteer interests, so much as to meet the management interest of a sustainable volunteer workforce.
Volunteers were wary of the use of the Staff Volunteer identity within ambulance services either because it was polyvalent and used by managers, or because it lowered the status gains of volunteering . The following excerpt details how volunteers feel they have experienced the polyvalent use of the Staff Volunteer identity and the subsequent cynicism of volunteers:
Volunteer management Gwen: So we talk career and volunteer. Career is paid; volunteer is volunteer, but we’re all supposed to be staff and it’s really amazing we’ve just had [a study] done for example and within that it all depended on what point they were trying to make, whether we were staff or not, you know, and you can’t have it both ways; … And what’s happening at the moment is the fact that in (the service) there aren’t a lot of policies anyway and so volunteers are treated one way and career staff are treated another way because of the culture that’s gone through, and what we’re saying is let’s put the staff in brackets and there will be differences but for example conflict, performance appraisal, you know, those things that make a business work, there shouldn’t be any difference. Volunteer management Fred: It’s like Gwen’s saying, it’s really you’re told you’re staff but you always get the impression oh, you’re walking arm in arm up to the front door but as soon as you get to the front door they say, “No, your entrance is around the back.” And that still exists on occasion. We’re trying to remove that because we feel, and you get told, that you’re important.
Both speakers in the above excerpt suggest that the ambivalence and blurred boundaries around the Staff Volunteer identity are strategically used to benefit the service. Both resist the idea that Staff Volunteers do receive equitable treatment and provide supporting evidence. Gwen uses a practical example to stress this while Fred uses a metaphor. Gwen gives the example where volunteers were labelled as staff depending on the point being made in a report and argues against this by claiming ‘you can’t have it both ways’. Fred uses the metaphor of walking ‘arm in arm up to the front door’ only to be told to use the back entrance. This metaphor is quite powerful, as it draws on historical ideas of servants using the back door, creating imagery of volunteers as second-class citizens. However Fred softens the initially powerful metaphor by adding ‘And that still exists on occasion’. This follow up statement may be because the situation has improved for volunteers, but more likely because Fred did not feel in a dominant enough position to openly criticise
Both Gwen and Fred position themselves as change agents31 in a difficult
environment, but not as powerful change agents. They are sceptical of the risk of losing sight of the ‘volunteer’ under the term staff.
Volunteer Management Gwen: what we’re saying is – and especially what we have been fighting for – is that within somewhere there needs to be something that says there is a volunteer component within [our ambulance service]
Gwen’s use of the word ‘fighting’ (and in other parts of the interview they use words such as ‘trying’) to describe their change actions suggests that their change actions are a struggle and that there is resistance to their proposed changes. Gwen is concerned that volunteers will be lost under the title of ‘staff’ and proposes that ‘staff’ be an additional category to career and volunteer. “Career is paid; volunteer is volunteer, but we’re all supposed to be staff… what we’re saying is let’s put the staff in brackets”. In this way Gwen is accepting the inevitability of the Staff Volunteer identity, but
suggesting a strategy that will allow volunteers to remain visible within ambulance services. Volunteer wariness to the Staff Volunteer identity may not be misplaced as the identity was used most by those in positions of authority, with more power over discursive practices, and therefore the ability to use the discourse to benefit their own interests.
The Volunteer Staff identity reflects the interests of ‘new managers’ as they incorporate managerial discourses into ambulance services. These interests overlap with many volunteer interests because ‘new managers’ (as interviewed for this study) were placed in positions that were responsible for the volunteer workforce or rural volunteer delivered services. However volunteers were the objects of the discourse and were wary of the polyvalent nature of the identity, where volunteers could be made visible or invisible depending on the interests of the managers. Despite this cynicism the Staff Volunteer identity did bring new resources for volunteers and new ideas for thinking about a volunteer workforce.
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Neither Gwen nor Fred were ‘typical’ volunteers in that they had become involved in driving change.