Working It Out – summary of the voluntary matters 3 TV programme

Many people try to avoid conflict in their personal and professional lives - a strategy guaranteed to make things worse. In fact, dealing with conflict in organisations can have positive and creative results.

Working It Out demonstrates that communication skills are vital in managing conflict. You need to be able to listen, negotiate between different perspectives, and provide solutions. Without having procedures in place to deal with problems as they arise, it's easy for conflicts to get out of hand. It's also vital that everyone in an organisation is clear about the roles and responsibilities of staff and volunteers, otherwise confusion between roles can lead to conflicts.

Working It Out considers conflict on a number of levels. Because volunteers give their time for free, many people find it very difficult to ask volunteers to leave even if their involvement isn't productive. At Ben View Lunch Club, two different volunteers were told to leave because clients were being affected by their behaviour, and the story highlights the importance of acting early in such situations, and of keeping discussions about behaviour on a formal basis, so that volunteers are clear about what is expected from them. If you do decide to ask volunteers to leave, it's also good practice to suggest alternative volunteering opportunities.

At Cricklewood Homeless Concern, many volunteers are ex-clients of the service. In their new roles, volunteers have to act with authority and make decisions that affect clients - and there can be resentment from the clients as a result. Volunteers are trained to deal with challenging or aggressive behaviour so that the opportunity for conflict situations to develop is minimised. This empowers volunteers, protects the clients and encourages open discussion of difficult situations.

Organisational change is a common trigger to conflict. The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) is introducing major changes to both standardise and improve the volunteering experience. Their experience demonstrates that thorough and extensive consultation and negotiation skills are vital to introduce change with minimal conflict.

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