top of page

Conducting a needs analysis

Chapter 2:
Conducting Needs Assessment

What can a needs analysis do for you?

Conducting a needs analysis will allow you to be more targeted on how volunteers will fit in and how they can meet your organisation’s goals.

Defining your organisation's needs

To define your organisation’s needs, consider the following: 

  1. Think about your organisation’s strategic purpose in engaging volunteers: how will your volunteers help to achieve your organisation’s mission and vision? 

    • Keep in mind that the volunteer role should reflect not only what your organisation needs but also what your volunteers want to do. The experience should be meaningful for your volunteers too! 
       

  2. Assess the current state of your organisation in relation to your strategic plans

    • Think about what you hope to achieve in your strategic plans and what efforts have been done to achieve those. Once the gaps have been identified, it will be easier to narrow down ways to improve your organisation’s volunteering experience. 
       

  3. Define and evaluate the scope of the volunteer role

    • List down the areas identified for potential volunteer involvement and evaluate the current involvement of volunteers in these areas. 

    • The types of roles which volunteers take on typically fall into 3 categories: 

      • Service-based roles: The volunteer is directly involved in services provided by the organisation and these roles are usually client-facing. 

      • Event-based roles: The volunteer conduct events which could include fundraising, public awareness campaigns, organising camps etc. 

      • Skills-based roles: The volunteer value-adds the organisation with their specialised skills such as hairdressing, photography, web design etc. 

      • After conducting a needs analysis, you can look into the roles that your organisation currently offers and consider redesigning some of your volunteer opportunities.

What is job redesign?

Job redesign is a process whereby job content is reviewed and possibly reallocated. This will allow you to identify ways to involve the volunteers in a role that is currently held down by staff. 

​

Job redesigning can help your organisation by increasing your productivity and volunteer involvement, improving the organisation’s service delivery, increasing volunteer satisfaction and retention levels and promoting better use of your staff and volunteers’ abilities so as to increase workforce satisfaction levels. 

When should you consider a job redesign?

  1. When service users require high touch for better development or recovery

  2. When there is a need to meet intangible needs of service users 

  3. When there is a need to expand the capacity of the organisation 

  4. When there is a crisis impacting existing resources 

How to conduct a job redesign? 

To conduct a job redesign, you can follow these 5 steps to ensure success. 
 

​

  1. Identify areas to redesign

    • ​The first step is the identify the job roles that require a job redesign. One way is to focus on staff roles that have the potential to include volunteers. Speak with current staff to understand the key challenges and pain points that come with their daily tasks and responsibilities. This could highlight areas that require more attention and manpower that volunteer involvement could help mitigate. 

    • Once you have done so, you need to ensure buy-in from senior management by engaging with them to understand their strategic goals, key challenges and opportunities for job redesign. 

    • You will also need to understand the skills that are required to take on these roles before assessing the viability of allocating them to a volunteer. 
       

  2. Develop recommendations 

    • Once you have the job role in mind, you can begin to formulate a redesign plan. This plan should include a study of what the identified job roles do, an understanding of their processes, an identification of areas that each job role is value-adding and an estimation of the time spent on each activity. 

    • When thinking about how the role can involve volunteers, there are three points of consideration:

    • ​













       

  3. Study impact 

    • After developing your recommendations, you should also aim to forecast any challenges in the job redesign. Think about the potential challenges in the implementation of the redesign that you might face and establish the resources required for the redesign. Resources needed could include manpower, technology or knowledge and expertise.
       

  4. Pilot test 

    • Do a pilot test of the redesign to ensure that the redesign is feasible. A successful test will also allow for greater acceptance and a smoother transition during the rollout phase.

    • To conduct a pilot test, you first need to get your organisation ready for the redesign. Train the staff and volunteers who will be involved in the redesign and obtain managerial support for the implementation. Set timelines for the implementation and identify programme leaders or points of contact for the implementation activities. When planning, you should also identify desired outcomes of the redesign and how you intend to measure success. 

    • When the planning phase is completed, you can execute the job redesign. Remember to assign a facilitator to guide all stakeholders involved and to monitor the progress of the pilot test by keeping an issue log. 

    • Lastly, collect feedback from staff and volunteers involved at the end of the pilot test. This can be done via survey and you can measure the success of your pilot test using the desired outcomes previously identified. Improve on your pilot test before the rollout phase. 
       

  5. Rollout

    • The last step is the rollout of the redesign to the rest of your organisation. You will need to obtain buy-in from your organisation's stakeholders by engaging them in the redesign plan and objectives. This may require multiple dialogues with the affected staff. 

    • Communicate the job redesign plan to the rest of the organisation effectively as a job redesign may affect others around the affected role. This will help to ensure a smooth transition into your redesign plan. 

    • Address some concerns and feedback regarding the redesign in a timely manner. Some concerns to anticipate could surround job stability. 

bottom of page