Volunteer Workforce Management At Glastonbury Festival

Task 1

Task 1
a) Discuss the reasons, justifying why an event, such as Glastonbury Festival would seek to recruit volunteers as a major component of their workforce.
b) Analyse the benefits and limitations associated with employment of volunteers at Glastonbury Festival.
Task 2
a) Assess the reasons which would lead to lack of motivation amongst volunteers at Glastonbury Festival.
b) Propose strategies, which should be used by HR Managers in order to increase motivation of volunteering staff.

Human resource management is normally concerned with forecasting and planning the requirement for human labor. Human resource management also structure, organize tasks and allocate them to several departments. Furthermore, HR management also communicates with different channels and departments in order to maintain proper communication between the organizations. To be more specific, HR management engages in the operational function of selecting and hiring employees. HR department is also responsible for providing training and development, compensation and appraisal in order to motivate employees towards their responsibilities.

In this assignment, the prime focus will be on Glastonbury Festival Workforce Management. Glastonbury festival is a five-day festival of contemporary arts that takes place in Somerset (Digital 2016). This festival is regarded as one of the most popular festival in this area. Therefore, many people across the globe come to Somerset to visit this festival. The festival utilizes many volunteers as a prime component of the workforce. Since, volunteer workforce is often gives their best effort in order to perform their responsibilities in an appropriate manner. However, large size of volunteer workforce also has several drawbacks. Therefore, the assignment will conduct in-depth analysis regarding the advantages and benefits of volunteer workforce in the event management sector.

Every successful festival requires a strong foundation of HR management. Since, it includes recruitment, workforce planning, retention, development that has significant contribution on the successful completion of any event (Aisbett and Hoye 2015). However, unlike other industries, roles and responsibilities are different for the employees working in event industry. Specifically in the festivals like Glastonbury that takes place only five days a year, it becomes very tough for the human resource management to employ paid labour for this limited time period. Furthermore, several factors induce Glastonbury festival to utilize volunteer as the major component of workforce. The factors are as follows:

Limited time:

Glastonbury festival is the biggest music festival in UK. As a result, people from all across the world come to Somerset for attending Glastonbury festival. Therefore, it requires huge amount of people in order to manage the visitors. Thus, HR management team of the festival has to recruit many people in a short period of time (WAkElIN 2013). Furthermore, paid employees often do not consider for this short period of recruitment. As a result, HR management include volunteer in order to fulfil the human requirements for conducting the festival successfully.

a) Reasons for recruiting volunteers

Increase satisfaction level of the visitors:

Volunteer workforces are often found more enthusiastic regarding their roles and responsibilities. Specifically, huge festivals like Glastonbury require full commitment from the employees so that the visitors can able to enjoy successfully. As a result, volunteers often able to fulfil requirements that eventually increase the satisfaction level of the visitors.       

Effective maintenance of several roles and responsibilities:

Including volunteers in the workforce allows managing several roles and responsibilities of the festival even more effectively. Since, it allows HR management to divide the entire jobs in a much more effective way (Güntert, Neufeind and Wehner 2015). Furthermore, volunteers often give addition efforts in order to ensure the success of the festival. In addition, volunteers can be provided with any given task, which eventually reduces the possibility of any issue arising in managing the festival in at appropriate manner.      

Reduce cost:

Cost is probably the most important factor that induces HR team of Glastonbury festival to include volunteer as the major component of workforce. Since, many people show their interest to work as a volunteer in order to gain experience in the event management industry (Hallmann and Harms 2012). Furthermore, it also reduces the recruitment cost of the HR team of Glastonbury festival. As a result, it allows human resource management team to fulfil all the requirements of employees without increasing the cost of conducting the festival.

Benefits:

1. Including volunteers in the workforce helps human resource management team to identify the best performers that can later be considered for permanent recruitment. Since, volunteers also have to perform similar responsibilities like any other paid employees (Rodell 2013). It also gave volunteers the experience and exposures on how to handle critical and complex responsibilities of the festival.
2. It allows human resource team of Glastonbury festival to get in touch with many people. As a result, HR team have to spend lesser time at the time of identifying and recruiting any people for a particular task. This helps to reduce cost of recruiting people.
3. It also help HR team to develop empathy, awareness, coaching, patience, teamwork and communication among the different department of the employees. Therefore, it helps to enhance the operational process of the HR management team of Glastonbury festival.

Limitations:

1. Human resource management team have lesser control over the activities of the volunteers. Therefore, many volunteers often take unscheduled leaves that affect the overall effectiveness of the operational process (Raj, Walters and Rashid 2013). Furthermore, many volunteers often leave jobs without any previous notice. As a result, HR team of Glastonbury festival have to face huge amount of difficulties in managing the roles and responsibilities in an appropriate manner.
2. Most of the volunteers do not have any previous experience in managing critical responsibilities of any events (Veleva et al. 2012). As a result, they do not possess any specific skills that can allow HR team to give any critical or major responsibilities. Furthermore, HR team also have to spend money to train the volunteers so that they can able to perform the responsibilities in an appropriate manner.
3. It is also found that many volunteers struggle to keep up their level of motivation in the middle of the festival. Since, volunteers work without any financial or other benefits; it is very difficult for them to keep themselves motivated towards their work (Asah, Lenentine and Blahna 2014). As a result, it becomes very challenging for the human resource management to implement innovative strategies that can able to keep the volunteers motivated towards their responsibilities.

Lack of financial benefits:

Most of the event management companies hire volunteers, as they offer free services to the organization. In fact, many organizations do not provide other benefits for the benefit of the volunteers. According to Maslow theory of motivation, organizations have to fulfill five different types if need including psychological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization needs in order to motivate employees to give their best at the workplace (Getz and Page 2016). However, volunteers are not a permanent part of the workforce but still they have to perform responsibilities like any other employees working at Glastonbury festival. Therefore, HR management have to provide several other benefits in order to maintain the motivational level of the employees. However, like any other event, human resource management of Glastonbury festival does not provide too much importance on fulfilling the needs of the volunteers.

Long hours of working:

During Glastonbury festival, volunteers also have to work for similar hours like any other paid employees. In fact, many time volunteers have to perform extreme stressful work so that the festival can conducted effectively. As per the article by Love, Sherman and Olding (2012) long hours of working play a crucial role in increasing the stress level of the employees. Thus, increasing level of stress creates huge amount of negative impact on the motivational level of the volunteers. Furthermore, volunteers working at Glastonbury festival do not get the enough amount breaks within the working hours. It also reduces the satisfaction level of the volunteers that eventually affects the motivational level of the volunteers.

b) Benefits and limitations associated with employment of volunteers at Glastonbury Festival

No career growth:

All the volunteers work on a part time basis at Glastonbury festival. Therefore, they do not get any career growth opportunity even after providing high quality work at the festival. In fact, many volunteers feel unsafe regarding the future condition of the professional life (Gerritsen and van Olderen 2014). However, it is important for the management team of Glastonbury festival to measure the performance level of the volunteers. Since, it not only will help human resource management of Glastonbury festival to identify the best skilled volunteer but also will induce them to give their best at the workplace. However, human resource management of Glastonbury festival does not provide too much importance on the identifying the talent from the group of the volunteers. Therefore, most of the volunteers could not able to motivate themselves to give their best at the workplace.

Lack of recognition:

According to Waikayi et al. (2012), recognition plays a crucial role in increasing the motivational level of the employees to give their best at the work place. As mentions in the Maslow’s theory of motivation, organizations have to provide an atmosphere where employees can fulfill their love and belonging needs. However, like any other event management organizations, human resource management team of Glastonbury festival does not give too much importance on providing proper recognition to the volunteers. As a result, majority of the volunteers are not able to motivate themselves to give their 100% at the workplace. In the absence of proper recognition, volunteers often could not able to set goals. It also affects the motivational level of the employees. 

Proper measurement of the performances:

As per the article by Brigade and Collective (2014) performance measurement is crucial for maintaining proper atmosphere at the workplace. Since, it encourages employees to give their best at the workplace. Proper measurement of the performance of the employees leads to fair performance appraisal and increment for the employees. This rule is also applicable for the volunteers as well. Since, majority of the volunteers participate in the Glastonbury festival not only to gain experience of working in the management industry but also to develop bright professional career. Therefore, if HR management of Glastonbury festival measure performances of every volunteers, they could easily identify the best performers. As a result, HR management can easily provide proper benefit or even hire best performers for the future commitments. Therefore, it will definitely induce volunteers to give their best possible effort for the success of the festival.   

Task 2

Providing knowledge about the future benefits:

Many people casually join as volunteer at Glastonbury festival without understanding the kind of benefits it can provide for future career development. Therefore, human resource management of Glastonbury festival have to share in-depth information about the growth of event management industry and the kind of career an individual can develop by working in the event sector (Henning and Jones 2013). This information will enrich the knowledge and will make them more serious towards their roles and responsibilities. In fact, it will induce volunteers to set future goals, which eventually will create positive impact on the motivational level.

Special allowances:

Human resource management team of Glastonbury festival can also focus on providing special allowances to the volunteers so that they remain motivated towards their responsibilities. HR management team can utilize several tools and techniques for providing special allowances to the volunteers (Kodama, Doherty and Popovic 2013). For instance, HR management team can announce that the best performer will be rewarded at the end of the festival. Furthermore, HR team can also set particular goals for each of the volunteers for becoming eligible for the allowances. In addition, HR team can also provide special tickets of the festival for the family members of each of the volunteers. This will definitely enhance the motivational level of the volunteers.

Conclusion:

In present competitive business environment, organizations from different industry implement several unique strategies so that they can remain competitive in the market. Event sector is also not an exception. Therefore, like any other organization, prime objective of the HR team is to reduce the cost of conducting Glastonbury festival. This induces human resource management team to utilize volunteers for the successful completion of different roles and responsibilities of the festival. From the above analysis, it can be assess that utilizing volunteers provide several benefits for the organization. However, it also has some drawbacks as well. Therefore, it is up to the capability of the human resource management team to utilize volunteers in such a way so that it can able to benefit the Glastonbury festival.

References:

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