@article {bnh-8383, title = {Exploring Volunteer Turnover Reasons, Intentions, and Behaviour}, journal = {Group \& Organization Management}, year = {2024}, month = {03/2024}, abstract = {

Volunteer involving organisations play a vital role in many societies. Yet, turnover among volunteers remains a persistent struggle and volunteer involving organisations still do not have a good understanding of why volunteers leave. In response, we employed a mixed-methods approach to explore why volunteers consider leaving. By coding textual responses of Australian State Emergency Services and Scouting volunteers (n\ = 252 and 2235) on an annual engagement survey, we found seven overarching reasons to consider leaving these volunteer involving organisations: Conflict, high demands and/or low resources, lack of fit, lack of inclusion, personal commitments and circumstances, poor communication and organisational practices, and poor leadership. When contrasted to the reasons that employees leave organisations for, the lack of inclusion and poor communication and organisational practices seem to be uniquely salient reasons that volunteers consider leaving for. Subsequently, guided by the Proximal Withdrawal States theory and using quantitative data from the Scouts sample, we investigated how reasons to consider turnover can predict turnover intentions and turnover behavior. First, volunteers in different withdrawal states cited different potential turnover reasons. For example, volunteers who {\textquoteleft}wanted to stay, but felt they had to leave{\textquoteright} cited personal commitments and circumstances more frequently than those in different withdrawal states. Second, we found that reasons to consider turnover explained little variance in turnover behavior one year later.

}, keywords = {volunteering}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011241237841}, url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10596011241237841}, author = {Djurre Holtrop and Christine Soo and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Darja Kragt and Patrick Dunlop and Aleksandra Luksyte} } @article {bnh-8340, title = {Setting expectations during volunteer recruitment and the first day experience: a preregistered experimental test of the met expectations hypothesis}, journal = {European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology}, year = {2022}, month = {04/2022}, abstract = {

In a preregistered experimental study that draws from the met expectations hypothesis, we examined how volunteer recruitment messaging can shape expectations of new volunteers prior to their first day, and whether meeting or failing to meet expectations on the first day would affect satisfaction. By experimentally manipulating a recruitment poster, we set either a transactional (i.e., by volunteering, one can learn new skills) or a relational expectation (i.e., one can work in a team). Participants then viewed an experimentally determined vignette that depicted their first day as a volunteer as either being rich in, or bereft of, experiences of teamwork and learning new skills (crossed). We found that recruitment messaging strongly impacted the participants{\textquoteright} expectations of the volunteering experience prior to their first day. Neither meeting expectations regarding teamwork nor learning new skills played a statistically significant causal role in determining satisfaction. By contrast, richer experiences notwithstanding expectations, and especially those pertaining to learning new skills, were more important determinants of satisfaction. Polynomial regression analyses supported the experimental results, namely that experiences far more strongly determined satisfaction than did expectations. We conclude that providing richer experiences to volunteers is more important than expectation management for volunteer satisfaction.

}, keywords = {experiment, met expectations, preregistered, recruitment, volunteering}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2022.2070478}, url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epub/10.1080/1359432X.2022.2070478?needAccess=true}, author = {Patrick Dunlop and Djurre Holtrop and Darja Kragt and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Hawa Muhammad Farid and Aleksandra Luksyte} } @article {bnh-8307, title = {Supporting new volunteers: a resource kit for emergency service volunteer leaders}, number = {720}, year = {2022}, month = {01/2022}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

The 2019-20 Australian bushfires ({\textquoteleft}Black Summer{\textquoteright}) caused a spike in volunteer inquiries. The devastating impact the bushfires had on the environment, animal populations, and the homes and livelihood of many Australians prompted considerable interest in volunteering for emergency services. Absent large-scale disasters, attracting and retaining volunteers are major challenges for emergency volunteer brigades, groups, and units (BGUs). However, the aftermath of the 2019-20 bushfires left volunteer leaders and managers with little guidance as to how they can properly onboard, support, lead, and manage the sudden influx of new volunteers and ensure that they are prepared for future bushfire seasons. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic that followed the bushfires shortly after left an increased appetite for online learning as face-to-face training was sometimes not possible.

Following the work of the Enabling Sustainable Emergency Volunteering project[1], as well as through research conducted with the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES), the Supporting New Volunteers: A Resource Kit for Emergency Service Volunteer Leaders was proposed and created with the intention of providing both volunteers and staff members within emergency services organisations the guidance and tools to better support volunteer recruitment, onboarding, and leadership. These are research-based resources designed to complement and reinforce existing training and support available within emergency service organisations.

There are three modules available within the resource kit:

These modules contain resources that drew from real-life volunteer case studies and the available research evidence. The training information includes short (2-4 minute) training videos, volunteer interviews, {\textquoteleft}tip sheets{\textquoteright}, checklists, case studies, thinking exercises, reflection exercises, and editable templates.

It is hoped that these accessible and practical resources will empower and support volunteer leaders and emergency service staff members in their mission to attract, support, manage, and retain current and future volunteers in BGUs.

}, keywords = {emergency service, leaders, resource, training, volunteers}, issn = {720}, author = {Patrick Dunlop and Hawa Farid and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Darja Kragt} } @article {bnh-7791, title = {Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering - annual report 2019-2020}, number = {638}, year = {2021}, month = {01/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

The Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project is a three-year project being jointly undertaken by researchers at RMIT University, the University of Western Australia, and Curtin University for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (BNHCRC). Now in its final year, it is the core project in the BNHCRC{\textquoteright}s research cluster on Sustainable Volunteering. The goal of this cluster is to improve the long-term sustainability of the emergency management volunteer workforce and better engage the potential of volunteering to build disaster resilience in Australian communities.

The Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project has two broad aims, each of which is addressed by a targeted package of work:

The project complements other active BNHCRC research projects, especially in the emergency management capability cluster (e.g. Diversity and inclusion: building strength and capability and Catastrophic and cascading events: planning and capability projects). It also draws from work in two completed projects: the Bushfire CRC Volunteerism project (2003-2010) undertaken by researchers at La Trobe University (Birch, 2011) and the BNHCRC Out of uniform: building community resilience through non-traditional volunteering project (2015-2017), which was a precursor to the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project based at RMIT University (B. J. McLennan, Kruger, Handmer, \& Whittaker, 2017; B. J. McLennan, Whittaker, Kruger, \& Handmer, 2017).\ 

This Annual Report communicates the key activities and achievements of the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project in the 2019-2020 financial year. This was the third year of the project (see also B. J. McLennan et al., 2018). The research phase of the project is due to end in December 2020.

}, keywords = {Emergency, sustainable, volunteering. recruitment}, issn = {638}, author = {Blythe McLennan and Patrick Dunlop and Darja Kragt and Djurre Holtrop and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Aleksandra Luksyte and Hawa Farid} } @article {bnh-8139, title = {Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering {\textendash} final project report}, number = {695}, year = {2021}, month = {08/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {MELBOURNE}, abstract = {

The Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project was jointly undertaken by researchers at RMIT University, the University of Western Australia, and Curtin University for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (CRC). It is the only core project in the CRC{\textquoteright}s research cluster on Sustainable Volunteering that is in active research phase. The goal of this cluster was to improve the long-term sustainability of the volunteer workforce, and better engage the potential of volunteering to build disaster resilience in Australian communities.

The Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project had two broad aims, each of which was addressed by a targeted package of work:

The project complemented other active CRC research projects, especially in the Emergency management capability cluster (e.g. Diversity and inclusion: building strength and capability and Catastrophic and cascading events: planning and capability projects).\ It also drew from work in two completed projects: the Bushfire CRC Volunteerism project (2003-2010) undertaken by researchers at La Trobe University and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Out of uniform: building community resilience through non-traditional volunteering project (2015-2017), which was a precursor to the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project based at RMIT University.\ 

This Final Report communicates the key activities and achievements of the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project in its entirety from July 2017, up to March 2021. It also describes a range of follow-on utilisation activities being undertaken from July 2020 to June 2021.

}, keywords = {Emergency, recruitment, sustainable, volunteering}, issn = {695}, author = {Blythe McLennan and Patrick Dunlop and Darja Kragt and Djurre Holtrop and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Aleksandra Luksyte and Hawa Farid} } @article {bnh-7972, title = {State Emergency Service (SES): Volunteer views on experiences, wellbeing, and motivations {\textendash} Findings from the Cultural Assessment Tool (CAT) Survey 2019-20}, number = {660}, year = {2021}, month = {04/2021}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {MELBOURNE}, abstract = {

In 2017, the University of Western Australia (UWA) began a research collaboration project with the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES), funded by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (BNHCRC), to investigate ways to improve the retention rates of their emergency service volunteers. Thus, researchers from UWA and Curtin University collaborated with DFES to develop and administer a Cultural Assessment Tool (CAT) in the form of an online survey from September 2018 to February 2019.

The CAT survey conducted in 18-19 was intended to learn more about the SES volunteering experience from the volunteers{\textquoteright} perspectives. The goal was to obtain information on how to improve volunteer recruitment, retention, wellbeing, and diversity practices within the overall SES volunteering journey. The findings of the 18-19 survey were then used to inform the design of the follow-up CAT survey conducted in 19-20. The key purpose of the 19-20 survey was to assess the current state of volunteering within the SES in 2019 and 2020, in addition to tracking changes in the SES volunteering experience over the last 12 months. The CAT 18-19 findings served as the basis for comparison, such that the 19-20 survey was used to investigate which areas of the volunteering experience have remained the same, improved from the previous year, or have room for improvement.

Survey information

The CAT 19-20 survey was administered on the Qualtrics online survey platform, allowing the research team to collect data from multiple Western Australian regions in a short amount of time. We also offered paper and pencil versions of the survey to volunteers upon request.\ \ 

Individuals who completed the CAT 19-20 survey did so anonymously, to encourage transparency in their responses. In the CAT 18-19 survey, participants were asked to supply their email addresses to be contacted for future research. Of the 398 participants from the 18-19 survey, 307 gave their email addresses. These volunteers were invited to participate in the 19-20 survey and were given three reminders to complete it. The survey was also launched at the Western Australian Fire and Emergency Services (WAFES) conference in September 2019. The survey was later promoted through stakeholder meetings and online means (i.e., volunteer e-newsletters, the DFES online volunteer portal, and Facebook).

There were six main themes in the CAT 19-20 survey, and a total of 90 individual survey questions, plus ten demographic questions.

Compared to the 18-19 survey, the theme of {\textquoteleft}Meeting Expectations{\textquoteright} and the sub-theme {\textquoteleft}Reasons to Join{\textquoteright} were removed due to sufficient information collected from the previous year. However, several open-ended questions were included in the 19-20 survey to measure; any leadership or role changes in the unit, changes in the personal lives of volunteers that affected their ability to volunteer, and any changes in the incluvieness of their unit climates in the last 12 months.

Of the 2033 registered SES volunteers across Western Australia (WA), we received 226 complete responses for the CAT 19-20 survey, with an overall estimated response rate of 11\%. Of the 226, 136 participants had also participated in the CAT 18-19 survey. However, due to incompleteness in the CAT 18-19 survey, the final total number of matched participants for both surveys is 95 respondents. In comparison to 18-19, the survey response rate has reduced from 21\% to 11\%. One possible explanation for the lower response rate in 19-20 is due to the survey overlapping with other SES volunteer surveys being conducted by different organisations using similar timeframes.

The document will now proceed with discussing the participant demographics and findings for the CAT 19-20 survey. This will be followed by a comparison of the findings between the CAT 18-19 and 19-20 surveys. Finally, the document will conclude with key implications; highlighting group differences, key areas of strength, and key opportunities for improvement.

}, keywords = {Cultural Assessment Tool, experiences, motivations, state emergency service, survey, volunteers, wellbeing}, issn = {660}, author = {Hawa Farid and Darja Kragt and Patrick Dunlop and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Aleksandra Luksyte and Djurre Holtrop} } @article {bnh-6985, title = {Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering: annual report 2018-19}, number = {574}, year = {2020}, month = {06/2020}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

The Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project is being jointly undertaken by researchers at RMIT University, the University of Western Australia, and Curtin University for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (BNHCRC). It is the only core project in the BNHCRC{\textquoteright}s research cluster on Sustainable Volunteering that is in active research phase. The goal of this cluster is to improve the long-term sustainability of the volunteer workforce, and better engage the potential of volunteering to build disaster resilience in Australian communities.

The Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project has two broad aims, each of which is addressed by a targeted package of work:

The project complements\ other active BNHCRC research projects, especially in the Emergency management capability cluster (e.g. Diversity and inclusion: building strength and capability and Catastrophic and cascading events: planning and capability projects). It also draws from work in two completed projects: the Bushfire CRC Volunteerism project (2003-2010) undertaken by researchers at La Trobe University and the BNHCRC Out of uniform: building community resilience through non-traditional volunteering project (2015-2017), which was a precursor to the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project based at RMIT University.\ 

This Annual Report communicates the key activities and achievements of the Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering project in the 2018-2019 financial year. This was the second year of the project. The research phase of the project is due to end in June 2020.

}, keywords = {annual report, emergency volunteering, sustainable}, issn = {574}, author = {Blythe McLennan and Patrick Dunlop and Darja Kragt and Tarn Kruger and Djurre Holtrop and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Aleksandra Luksyte and Hawa Farid} } @conference {bnh-6529, title = {Emergency volunteer retention: can a culture of inclusiveness help?}, booktitle = {AFAC19 powered by INTERSCHUTZ - Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Research Forum}, year = {2019}, month = {12/2019}, publisher = {Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience}, organization = {Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

Given increasingly diversified communities and the importance of attracting and retaining all volunteers irrespective of their demographic background, it is important to increase the representativeness of volunteers by promoting diversity. We surveyed emergency services volunteers from Western Australia to examine (a) whether and why culture of inclusiveness plays an important role for volunteer retention and (b) whether and why female volunteers have different perceptions of inclusivity culture in their units. Our findings demonstrated that climate for inclusion played a vital role for volunteer retention because in such climates they felt connected and related to others, and felt freedom to express themselves professionally. Despite the importance of climate for inclusion, male and female volunteers viewed this climate differently and experienced different outcomes. Female volunteers perceived marginally lower levels of climate of inclusion than men. As hypothesised, female volunteers felt more connected to their teammates in inclusive climates integrative of differences. Unexpectedly, female volunteers{\textquoteright} relatedness needs were less likely to be fulfilled in inclusive climates where they were included into decision-making.

Download the full non-peer reviewed research proceedings\ from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Research Forumhere.

}, keywords = {communities, Emergency, volunteers. diversity and inclusion}, url = {https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/australian-journal-of-emergency-management-monograph-series/}, author = {Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Aleksandra Luksyte and Patrick Dunlop and Djurre Holtrop and Darja Kragt and Hawa Farid} } @article {bnh-6012, title = {State Emergency Service volunteer views on expectations, experiences and motivations}, number = {513}, year = {2019}, month = {09/2019}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, address = {Melbourne}, abstract = {

In 2017, the University of Western Australia (UWA) began a research collaboration project with the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES), funded by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), to investigate ways to improve the retention rates of their emergency service volunteers. The State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers are a vital community within Western Australia{\textquoteright}s emergency volunteering sector due to their profound work and assistance in times of natural disasters and other emergencies. As such, researchers from UWA (Patrick Dunlop, Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e}, and Djurre Holtrop have since relocated to Curtin University) have collaborated to develop and administer a Cultural Assessment Tool (CAT) in the form of an online survey. The purpose of this survey was to learn about the SES volunteering experience from the volunteers{\textquoteright} perspectives in order to obtain information on how to improve volunteer recruitment, retention, wellbeing, and diversity within the overall SES volunteering journey.

}, keywords = {Emergency management, research, state emergency service, survey, sustainable volunteering, volunteering}, issn = {513}, author = {Hawa Farid and Darja Kragt and Patrick Dunlop and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Aleksandra Luksyte and Djurre Holtrop} } @article {bnh-5622, title = {Volunteering research in Australia: A narrative review}, journal = {Australian Journal of Psychology}, year = {2019}, month = {06/2019}, abstract = {

Australian research on volunteering is rich and diverse, but also increasingly fragmented. In an attempt to promote a more integrated study of volunteering, we review volunteering research conducted in Australia, using volunteering journey as a framework. Specifically, we summarise literature on volunteer characteristics, motivations, benefits, psychological contract, commitment, and withdrawal.

}, keywords = {benefits, motivation, narrative review, volunteer retention, volunteering, withdrawal}, doi = { https://doi.org/10.1111/ajpy.12251}, url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajpy.12251}, author = {Darja Kragt and Djurre Holtrop} } @article {bnh-5038, title = {Enabling sustainable emergency volunteering: annual project report 2017-18}, year = {2018}, month = {11/2018}, institution = {Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC}, abstract = {

An inexorable link exists between volunteerism and community capability and resilience with respect to disaster risk. Communities and governments increasingly expect emergency management organisations (EMOs) to actively enable and enhance the value of volunteering for communities with respect to building community capability and resilience. This is strongly reflected in disaster management policy in Australia, embodied in the National Strategy for Disaster Resilience (COAG, 2011). It is also evident in the United Nation{\textquoteright}s Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction that calls on Nations to encourage {\textquotedblleft}Civil society, volunteers, organized voluntary work organizations and community based organizations to{\textquotedblright}, amongst other things, {\textquotedblleft}advocate for resilient communities and an inclusive and all-of-society disaster risk management that strengthen synergies across groups.{\textquotedblright} (UNISDR, 2015, p.23)\ 

}, issn = {423}, author = {Blythe McLennan and Patrick Dunlop and Darja Kragt and Tarn Kruger and Djurre Holtrop and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Aleksandra Luksyte and John Handmer} } @article {bnh-5016, title = {When joining is not enough: emergency services volunteers and the intention to remain}, journal = {Australian Journal of Emergency Management }, volume = {33}, year = {2018}, month = {10/2018}, chapter = {35}, abstract = {

Volunteer turnover is a continuous concern for emergency services organisations. Using a psychological contract perspective, this paper examines how meeting the initial expectations of volunteers when they join an emergency service is related to the volunteer{\textquoteright}s intention to remain with that service. A survey was undertaken by 539 emergency services volunteers in Western Australia after volunteering for about a year. The survey included questions about reasons why volunteers joined the service, activities they expected to undertake as a volunteer, their evaluation of the volunteering experiences in the first year and their intent to stay. Using Latent Class Analysis of their expectations, three types of volunteers were identified. These were {\textquoteleft}focused{\textquoteright} volunteers (having well-defined expectations), {\textquoteleft}lost{\textquoteright} volunteers (lacking clear expectations except for serving the community) and {\textquoteleft}overenthusiastic{\textquoteright} volunteers (expecting status, reputation and career progression among other things). The results showed that the focused volunteers had participated in more activities and had a higher intent to remain a volunteer. Having too few or too many expectations seems to have negative consequences. Therefore, emergency services organisations could strive to understand and shape volunteer expectations to match a new volunteer{\textquoteright}s experience by using better aligned recruitment practices.

}, url = {https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/media/6099/ajem-201810-kragt-dunlop-gagne-holtrop-luksyte-volunteer-retention.pdf}, author = {Darja Kragt and Patrick Dunlop and Maryl{\`e}ne Gagn{\'e} and Aleksandra Luksyte} }