Badminton England heavily relies on a volunteer workforce, and although this workforce is extremely dedicated and hardworking it is also an ageing workforce and there are few younger recruits coming on board.
Information and data on volunteers was very poor, with the events team reliant on word of mouth and slips of paper to track down the volunteers prior to an event. There was also no formal or easy process for new volunteers to get involved.
“On the day of the event we rarely knew who and how many people would turn up, this meant that we were often over-manned or undermanned. The lack of details on these volunteers meant low retention and a lot of money was spent on new uniforms. Plus we had no emergency contact information or basic medical, information on this workforce.”
Nicola Maloney - Head of Major Events and Competitions
They were aware that something had to change and that the lack of any systems or procedures were limiting their ability to recruit volunteers and expand their event volunteering. They heard about TeamKinetic from some other national governing bodies, and after seeing a demonstration and speaking to some existing customers they decided to utilise the system to manage their volunteers.
As TeamKinetic was not replacing an existing system, there was little difficulty in changing over. Understandably there was a resistance from some of the long serving volunteers to the switch to an on-line registration and management process.
“There was some understandable issues with existing volunteers who didn't understand why they had to register when then had volunteered with us for years, but this was an educational issue. Once we explained that it was to make the recruitment process fairer and it would also allow us to apply incentives and discounts in exchange for their volunteer hours, they quickly understood the benefits of using such a system.”
TeamKinetic was quickly put to the test with the London Grand Prix Gold Tournament (International Circuit Competition). The event was a huge success, and as a consequence of using the system they managed to triple their volunteer numbers. 83 percent of these volunteers have been retained and have continued to volunteer on other opportunities.
Since the rollout of TeamKinetic the time spent managing the volunteers has been reduced but volunteer numbers have grown exponentially from 30 to over 1400 within three years.
Due to the success of TeamKinetic within the Events team it is now being rolled out nationally to manage all volunteering from local clubs who need a coach to international events.
“Firstly, use TeamKinetic as after speaking to other NGBs it offers by far the best solution. Secondly, make sure that you spread your knowledge base so if the administrator leaves with short notice you are covered. Although I know we could always book a training day with TeamKinetic, it would be nicer if we could manage the transition internally.”