 It's great to have volunteers to help us out, but keeping them motivated is a whole different kind of challenge. Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step toward becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. Volunteers are a key part of just about every organization, but they come with their own set of challenges. Today I've got four tips for you that'll keep your volunteers engaged and motivated. And make sure you stay tuned to the end, I'm going to give you a link to download our free Leadership Development Plan workbook. And that'll help you set your career goals for the next two, five, and ten years and build a plan of action to achieve them. In today's workplace volunteers are becoming more and more common to help us get our missions accomplished. When I was in the Air Force there are a lot of squadron and group level and community activities that just wouldn't have been possible without the support of volunteers. Even if you're in a for-profit business you probably have some occasions where people need to volunteer to step out of something that's not in their regular job description in order to meet some of the company's goals. And of course if you're in a non-profit or community service organization volunteers are probably the ones getting most of your mission work accomplished. So today's tips are going to help you get the most out of your volunteers, it's going to help you motivate them, keep them engaged, and get them really moving to accomplish your goals. Tip number one is to stay focused on your mission. If you've got volunteers helping you out, chances are they believe in your cause and are connected to it at least a little bit. Get the ball rolling at the beginning of the day to talk about who the people you are are going to be helping and all the great work that the that the organization does for the community and try to keep them engaged with some fun facts about the community, the organization, and the benefits the organization throughout the day. Giving them that connection throughout the day will help them stay engaged and motivated on their task especially if it's a not particularly pleasant one. Tip number two is find out why they came. Everyone volunteers for a different reason. They might really believe in the cause, they might be looking for something to get involved in the community but aren't sure what yet, or they might just be people who showed up with their friends who really believe in the cause and want to spend some time with the people they care about and do something that's going to make them feel good about themselves. There's no bad reasons to volunteer. Our job as leaders is to figure out why they're volunteering because this will give us some insight into what tasks we can best assign to them, what work they can best fit in and do a great job for us in. Now remember the ideas of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and I won't go into all those details here but we did do a video a while back on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation so there's a link to that video down in the notes. Check out that video if you want to refresh yourself on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation but keep those concepts in mind and try to recognize what the motivations are of the people who've walked in your door for the day to volunteer and that way you can match them up to the best tasks. They're going to suit them and suit what you need to be done and keep them motivated and engaged throughout the day. Tip number three is to assign well-defined tasks. If you've only got volunteers for a short period of time like a day or even a few hours it makes a lot of sense to give them a clearly defined task with a clear beginning and a clear end so they can walk out that door with a feeling of accomplishment. I actually learned this lesson working with reservists back when I was in the Air Force because we would get reservists for a day or two days at a time or in the extreme case the longest case would be when we get them for two or three weeks at a time. Now it was great to have their help but they often left unfulfilled if we didn't give them something that they could kind of start and complete in the time period they were working and when we did that they were they were happier they felt more fulfilled and we feel we felt like we really got a lot more out of them during their reserve duty periods. So this also works if you're not just getting someone for a few hours or a day if you've got someone for a long period of time like a couple of weeks or even an undefined period of time give them clearly defined tasks with clear starts and clear ends and if they finish a task and they're looking for more you can always give them something increasingly complex to take advantage of their commitment. The last tip I have for you today is to recognize people often as soon as your volunteers show up for the day make sure you thank them and let them know you appreciate them for what they're about to do and as the day goes on make sure that you're recognizing people who are doing something creative or innovative or going above and beyond and do that in front of the whole group so everyone can see what the good ideas are that they're doing implement those good ideas and that they can get a little bit of recognition. Finally at the end of the day make sure you bring everyone back together as a group thank them for their efforts and let them know how much they're appreciated for doing this and this is a great time if you've got some fun little awards you can give to the people who went above and beyond you can give them out you can give them some extra recognition at the end of the day and it's so important when you gather everyone back up not just to thank them for their effort but let them know how this their effort is going to benefit the community all the people who are going to benefit from what they've done and try to put some stories and some faces with the effort so that they can see who's really going to benefit from the great work they did. Everyone loves to be appreciated so make sure that you're taking the time to recognize your volunteers and appreciate them often. Volunteers are a key part of just about every organization these days a lot of really important work wouldn't get done without the help of volunteers as leaders it's our job to make sure that we're recognizing those volunteers thanking them for their work and actually using those volunteers in a way that makes them feel fulfilled when they leave at the end of the day. Follow these four tips and I'm sure you'll be able to keep your volunteers motivated and coming back for more. If you found this helpful please like comment and share it with a friend or co-worker click on that link below in the description that'll take you to where you can download our free leadership development plan workbook and that'll help you develop your career goals for the next two five and ten years and build a plan to achieve them. If you have any business or leadership questions leave us a comment below we'd love to hear from you or email us at info at evilgeniusleadership.com. EvilGeniusleadership.com is also where you can find out all our coaching and training programs so if you want to do some one-on-one work on your leadership style or your leadership skills or you'd like to get some help with your team and develop the skills on your team as a group let us know we'd be happy to do a free consultation for you and talk about how we might be able to help. Thanks for watching today I really appreciate it and remember the future is out there. Lead the way.