Questions:
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.
Answers:
Introduction
Event management is referred to the project management of large-scale events development such as festivals, ceremonies, formal or informal parties, conferences, conventions or concerts. The event managers attempt to plan all the stages of an event for making the event successful and sustainable. In an event, the event management team recruits some volunteers, who are the centre of event management because these staffs are responsible for the fate of an event significantly. Volunteers put the community into community events, as depicted by (Barron and Rihova 2011). Therefore, volunteers must have some specific skills and event manager as well as HR managers should recruit the most capable volunteers for a specific event. Glastonbury festival is a five-day music festival held in England. As it is a very popular festival, keeping volunteers is very important for sustained practices during the events. In this assignment, the major focus would be the volunteers and their role in a major event like Glastonbury festival (Love et al. 2012). Here, the volunteers are recruited for fulfilling a number of roles in the Glastonbury festivals including the management of the huge crowd during the festival. The benefits and limitations associated with volunteers and the strategies for improving the contribution of volunteers would be discussed.
Task 1
a) Reason for recruiting volunteers in Glastonbury Festival
Volunteers play the central role in the workforce of an event like Glastonbury festival. A number of charitable organizational works for providing skilled volunteers for the Glastonbury festival. Some organizations also offer job as a volunteer to the people who have already worked with Glastonbury festival as a volunteer. Oxfam is working with Glastonbury for years and provide skilled volunteers to the festivals (Hallmann and Harms 2012). There are other organization including Water Aid, War Child and Amnesty International, which are working with Glastonbury.
For a number of reasons volunteers are recruited. Besides the benefit of the event, the volunteers can also be benefited by working as a volunteer. Volunteers are recruited and trained for gaining their best performance. The success of an event depends upon the network of volunteers. For this, recruiting the right team of volunteers is very important along with orienting the volunteers towards the performance goals of the event. For a number of reasons these kinds of events recruit volunteers, these are as follows:
To enhance popularity- Volunteers are trained for advertising about the festivals through suitable means. Volunteers should have efficient skills for convincing people to join the festivals. The more people join the festival, the likelihood of festival’s success enhances. Thus, recruiting the right volunteers is crucial (Holmes and Smith 2012). Volunteers should have in-depth knowledge about the event to enhance the awareness within community.
To ensure smooth running of the event- Volunteers are recruited and trained for working as versatile staff. In addition, for specific parts of the festivals, specific volunteers are recruited. Volunteers are responsible for making the event successful, attempt to take responsibility to run the event peacefully to get the expected outcomes. Thus, they need critical thinking and problem solving skills (Savinovic et al. 2012).
To meet everyone’s need- There are more than one kinds of participants in the festivals. The volunteers would be responsible for meeting everyone’s needs. In the case of Glastonbury festival, there are huge number of audience present with different needs, as the program is a 5 days festival, the volunteers has to look after all the needs of audiences, judges and participants to satisfy them.
To monitor crowd level- managing the crowd level is another important cause why volunteers are required. The huge crowd in the Glastonbury festival is managed by the skilled and efficient volunteers.
To manage vehicles- As it is a very popular festival, thus people expect very systematic work from the event management team. The event managers thus have to hire skilled volunteers for meeting their expectation. Managing vehicles is crucial for avoiding unwanted problems within audience (Bachman et al. 2014).
To help with unplanned situations rose on the site- As mentioned before, the event manager have to give enough effort to recruit skilled volunteers, they should also arrange training sessions for the volunteers to make them efficient for handling any kind of unplanned situation raised at the site of event. It is very important for events like Glastonbury festival, as the popularity and tenure both are greater than other small festivals (Salem et al. 2012).
Safety of viewers- The health and safety team of Glastonbury group is very important for enhancing the success of the festival by reducing the health issues of people joined the festival. The volunteers having working experience in health care are required to take care of the huge crowd and all the guests.
Checking tickets– It is very important for a major festival like Glastonbury festival. As a huge number of people join the festival, the possibility to enter into the festival premises illegally is high, thus strict control on checking tickets is important. Volunteers are also required for checking tickets at the time of entrance (Ragsdell and Jepson 2014).
b) Benefits and limitations associated with employment of volunteers at Glastonbury festival
Benefits
There are several benefits of appointing volunteers at Glastonbury festivals. Volunteers are at the centre of event management for Glastonbury festival. Recruitment of efficient and skilled volunteers can stretch the success level of the festival to a very high level and thereby enhancing the ultimate profitability of the event organizers. Volunteers serve the Glastonbury organizers by contributing time, efforts or tents which helps to fulfill the mission of the event. Volunteers also attempt to establish enthusiasm and interest of public for creating a positive image of the event in the community (Dickson et al. 2014). If trained efficiently, the volunteers are able to deal with individual subject areas and thereby bringing new insights, energy and time to work. As the organizer of the festival gain benefits by recruiting volunteers, the volunteer also gain benefits by working as a volunteer.
Glastonbury festival authority pays the volunteer according to their role. On the other hand, volunteers are getting the opportunity to pursue the interest and gain new information from their work. Volunteers get proper training for developing new skills and enhancing their existing knowledge (Lee et al. 2013). A continuous development of their interpersonal skills is also associated with other benefits along with the increased experience. As Glastonbury festival is a very popular festival the volunteers are also get the opportunity to gain access of their organization of interest which can shape their future positively. Another benefit of recruiting volunteers is to get excellent assistance for minimal cost. In addition, motivated and satisfied volunteers would influence others to join the festival for minimal payment (Moffatt 2011). In an event like the Glastonbury festival, the volunteers are crucial for get all the steps of the event done smoothly.
Limitation
Glastonbury festival is a very popular festival where people want to work eagerly, but to ensure the success of the festival, skilled and experienced volunteers needed to be recruited. Recruiting experienced volunteers would need more investment. On the other hand, to make the volunteers comfortable in the environment, they should be trained properly, which is time consuming (Mair and Whitford 2013). Recruiting students can lead to failure of event due to the absence of skills and reluctance towards the stages of event.
Task 2
a) Reasons behind lack of motivation amongst volunteers at Glastonbury Festival
Lack of supervision is the major reason behind the lack of motivation at Glastonbury festivals. It has also been reported that volunteers are not paid according to their hurdle. In addition, volunteers have to work throughout the whole day without relaxation that enhances their frustration. The shift pattern of the volunteers is very unsatisfactory. The campsite is not close to the work spot, volunteers need to pitch their tent far away from the main area, after a long day of hard work, they have to walk a long distance to take rest and there is no space for sleep (Laranjo et al. 2012). As they work hard, they need proper rest to work efficiently on the next day, but unfortunately, this five days program do not allow the volunteers to sleep, all the festival days would be with noise, lights and debauchery. Volunteers usually seek works near the stage where they can also see the performance, but most of them could not get even closer to the stage that demotivate them to join the festival further. The food provided to the volunteers is not good in standard (Jensen and Buckley 2011). Volunteers get only a dry sandwich and piece of fruit. The environment does not remain healthy. Within hundreds and hundreds people, it becomes tough for volunteers to use a toilet also. The staff toilets are a disaster zone, a lack of maintenance lead to a messy toilet. Higher authorities and event organizers are not accessible to sort out these issues of volunteers. Overall, it can be said that the ambiance and facilities provided to the volunteers at Glastonbury festivals are hindering volunteer’s satisfaction and reducing the chance of their retention and participation in the festival further.
b) Strategies implemented by HR Managers for increase motivation of volunteering staffs
Motivation is one of the major key to success. Volunteers should be motivated to work efficiently. According to Mashlow’s hierarchy of needs theory, volunteers seek five basic steps of motivation including physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belongingness needs, self-estimation needs and self-actualization needs. Volunteers join this job for personal achievements. The basic psychological needs are the primary concern of motivating volunteers. Basic survival needs including food and accommodations should be good for giving the volunteers basic satisfaction (Lockstone-Binney et al. 2014). The HR managers can implement a number of strategies to enhance the level of volunteer’s motivation.
Free tickets- Most of the young people seek to join the biggest festival as volunteers with a desire to be present at the concert of their favorite celebrity or band. The volunteers can be motivated by providing free tickets of concerts of their favorite celebrity.
Good training- The event organizers should be aware of volunteer responsibilities and should be able to match between volunteer ability and the work given to them. From the training session, they should be trained in such a way that their basic needs are met and a good relationship is built with the organizers (Bachman 2014).
Good food and accommodation– As it has been identified that the Glastonbury organizers do not provide good food and accommodation for the volunteers. Even staff toilets are also not good for use. Thus, the HR managers should arrange good accommodation facilities for volunteers that would be near the main area. The management should also be concerned about the food provided to them (Lockstone-Binney et al. 2014).
Good pay scale and rewards– Rewarding staffs is one of the key strategies to motivate employees. While hiring volunteers with good skills, the management should offer attractive pay scale to influence volunteers to join the festival. Based on the performance, volunteers should be rewarded which would motivate them significantly to work harder.
Associative-supportive mechanism– The HR management should provide them the space to enjoy the event besides their responsibilities to contribute in the organization. Thus, the management should divide the total workforce into different groups and should assign tasks in such a way that they can enjoy their favorite concerts. It motivates them to join the festival in next year (Moffatt 2011).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that volunteers are important workforce in a big festival like Glastonbury music festival. Thus, the management and event organizers should take care of their requirements. The assignment included the reasons behind the recruitment of volunteers at Glastonbury festival. The Glastonbury festival would be benefitted by recruiting volunteers in different dimensions. A number of reasons for recruiting volunteers in music events have been discussed along with the benefits and limitations of recruiting volunteers in Glastonbury festival. A number of areas has been found from which the volunteers are getting demotivated and based on those areas, appropriate motivational strategies has been developed.
Reference List
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