Firing a Volunteer?

[Timmy]

I need your advice on a little predicament I have.

I have a volunteer in my events standby service who is a complete whacker. I can not begin to explain how annoying and incompetent he is. Here is a list of issues I have:

- He has no interest in learning pre hospital care.

- He is on a disability pension and states he can not work yet can volunteer on the ambulance.

- He passes all the courses and reaccreditation because his a "volunteer".

- He is very unfit and grossly overweight to the point it is very unprofessional and reflects a negative imagine on the service.

- He panics in any situation that's out of his comfort zone be it a clinical or non clinical situation.

- He has a consistent, productive cough.

- He smells.

- He attaches all the radios and scanners on his jacket and claims to be a radio wizl yet melts under pressure.

- He refuses to take part in training and wonders off to fiddle around with something else or makes stupid comments and bangs on about old war stories that send everyone to sleep.

- He gets involved with non EMS duties at events i.e. stalks the event officials offering stupid advice or offers to help in the canteen ect…

- We have to tell him to sit in the vehicle when were attending to a serious patient.

- He can not communicate at a normal level.

- He freaks out when a patient presents for assistance.

- The majority of volunteers refuse to work with him.

- His at every EMS activity, training, events and hangs around like a bad smell.

- The list could go on and on but I'm sure your head is already exploding.

We have a very high work load and a small number of volunteers, I try not to send him out to often but sometimes it's unavoidable, he is defiantly the last resort.

I have 8 other volunteers who are great to work with, I have volunteer RNs, doctor, student health care professionals and some younger individuals who have a keen interest in perusing a career in medicine. We really need to recruit some more volunteers and I have interest from people who would be absolutely brilliant but this man is holding it all back. Even though all this is extremely, extremely annoying he actually isn’t breaking any rules or doing anything wrong.

How do I fire a volunteer?

Edited April 17, 2009 by Timmy

[krumel]

Okay, I know your problem, had the same one once:

First of all: DO NOT FIRE HIM.

Normally this would make those people to an real pain in the ass.

THEN: DO NOT MOB HIM.

When he got a good attorney he might sue you to hell.

Because of this:

Go the Quality management way.

Introduce a new rule for all members where you know that he won't follow.

We started having three mandatory trainings a year. When you are absent in more than one training: You're no longer allowed to work. Make it clear to all members that this is a quality management process. (If one of the "good one's" cant follow the training find a way to let him/her stay)

If this doesn't work:

Introduce a policy that certain physical requirements are needed to work. (etc. BMI, a sports test, etc.)

Also you could try to introduce some absolulty mandatory rules for the things he like to do (for example: A rule that only certain persons may use scanners/radios, that people are strictly not allowed to speak with the event officials as long they aren't ordered to, etc.)

Normally he will get annoyed and leave by himself within a very short time.

[Timmy]

His been in for 35 years. The more EMS activates I organize the more I will see him (we have weekly training) He has no problem with attendance - rain, hail or shine he’ll be there with bells on. I’m thinking this fitness assessment may be a good idea, I know no one else will have a problem passing a basic test but he will fail miserably. I can’t stop him from bring his radios and scanners as he owns them and there his personal attire.

[Just Plain Ruff]

His been in for 35 years. The more EMS activates I organize the more I will see him (we have weekly training) He has no problem with attendance - rain, hail or shine he’ll be there with bells on. I’m thinking this fitness assessment may be a good idea, I know no one else will have a problem passing a basic test but he will fail miserably. I can’t stop him from bring his radios and scanners as he owns them and there his personal attire.

We have this exact same issue at our department. Our human resources department says that we cannot institute a physical agility requirement on anyone but new hires because they consider us to be grandfathered in and she is included.

Our laws in the states of course are different than yours.

[krumel]

His been in for 35 years. The more EMS activates I organize the more I will see him (we have weekly training) He has no problem with attendance - rain, hail or shine he’ll be there with bells on. I’m thinking this fitness assessment may be a good idea, I know no one else will have a problem passing a basic test but he will fail miserably. I can’t stop him from bring his radios and scanners as he owns them and there his personal attire.

But normally you could stop everyone from bringing his scanners to an EMS Activity (here the "insurance" thing might help: If he falls and the scanners break into pieces he might the insurance might not pay or anything like that).

Additonally you could try a "basic CPR test" and make him fail it missarable. The test is performed only twice a year and of course without the CPR Test he's not allowed to work...

That's another way to try to get rid of him.

[firedoc5]

Luckily I wasn't the one that had to do the "dismissing", but I've worked with many that had to be let go.

One thing that was done was to initiate a new physical agility test for everyone once a year. It did work on getting rid of some of those that had no business being there. But you also run he risk of losing someone who is working out geat. And it would be very hard to pick an activity that you know your problem worker will have problems with, but everyone else can do easily.

How did this guy get on in the first place? Or was he "normal" at first then gradually changed orver?

Other things you can look at are having training sessions you know he would absolutely hate doing, but others could tolderate them.

The easiest way to fire someone is to make them want to quit.

[zippyRN]

within the organisation -

1. make a referral to occupational health

i can see a number fo grounds where this may be appropriate

- mental health - the paniccing etc.

- obesity if it genuinely hampers his ability to work

- should he be crewing if he is on a disability pension becasue he is 'unable to work'

- if he is an authrosied driver - get the driver medicals updated ( this may however be a clutching at straws approach)

2. look carefully at revalidation/ continuning development / requalification criteria , if he genuinely can't communicate with patients or other members of the team adequately this is a possible route to restrict his activities, if necessarily go above your locality management to bring in assessors from elsewhere if you think your usual assessors are unduly lenient, or arrangefor their revalidation as assessors to be undertaken when asessing this particular individual

3. enlist the support of locality management in going down the disciplinary route if you consider that he is failing to perform to an appropriate level on a consistant and repeated basis despite extra assistance, support and being given 'words of advice' ....

outside the organisation -

let the benefits / social security people know aobut his activities - he may no have informed them or may be ignoring a requirement to limit the scope and/.or quantity of volunteering work - this individual could then be facing criminal proceedings for benefit fraud, which would also trigger a review of his membership of the organisation following a conviction for a crime of 'dishonesty'.

[WolfmanHarris]

Aside from the personal complaints (smells, productive cough etc) I'd say you have cause to dismiss this volunteer. Provided you have documentation of these deficiencies and have made effort to couch the volunteer to improve. If not, you need to start approaching this not from a "I need to get my papers together to cut this guy lose" but from an actual QA end where you really do intend and would like to see him improve. If you can't do that, you need to delegate this couching to someone else to ensure it's done in good faith. And if he successfully completes the remedial couching and starts doing the job, then you need to suck up disliking him and let him continue.

I've had to let volunteers go before and I found the first important step was to recognize that just because they're not paid, they have to still meet the requirements for the job. There were two ways I've terminated volunteers. The first was for violation of P&P where I followed the policy for termination with written warnings, meetings, etc.

The second was a termination based on patient care deficiencies (which at the time were not covered in the manual). I met with the individual, stated the issues and provided documentation from the call and informed them they were on suspension until successful completion of a remedial training plan and successfully completing a mentoring program and scenario training to show their improvement. In the four times I did this two went through all the requirements and returned as excellent responders. One gracefully stepped aside from an active role with no hard feelings. The fourth was a nightmare, but that's another story.

The key here is to set aside your personal issues. You're doing this because they are not competent to do the job and not meeting the requirements for the position (training, etc.), not because you can't friggin stand them and neither can anyone else. Once you make it personal you've created room for trouble.

[croaker260]

one observation: Your problem is not HIM. As a supervisor , it is NEVER personal. The probelm is HIS PERFORMANCE.

PERFORMANCCE IS EVALUATED AGAINST POLICIES, PROTOCOLS, AND EXPECTATIONS.

WHAT ARE YOUR POLICIES, PROTOCOLS, AND EXPECTAIONS?

If you dont have those in writting, build them collaboratively in your group.

The question is what are your policies? I would avoid writing policies "just for him"...this will invariably come back to bite you.

I would advise against insituting hoops "to wash him out" . Again, more work, may not work, etc.

I would look at your policies, build them if needed then approach it OBJECTIVELY.

For example, .HYGENE is not a personal issue if your policy says people must be at training and on duty with good hygene. Then have the balls to PRIVATELY (with another supervisor) coach, then counsel, then warn, etc etc then terminate. If he responds and gets clean, then your problem is still solved.

Example: Radio performace: establish policies realistic policies, on how radio communications shoudl be performed. Then train , then apply. Then counsel him, etc. if he fixes it, then great.

Example: Documentation.

Example: Appearance

Example: Conduct at standby events and staying at your post.

Get the idea?

I manage our reserve (Volunteer) program in a department of over 100 paid employees and up to 20 volunteers. it has been a learning experiance, but from the begining if you apply the same policies evenly accross all , and stet the standards from the begining, and work to help peopel to meet them, 90% of your problems self resolve.

[joesph]

With the assumption that you are indeed going to let this guy go here are some recommendations.

Have your loss and prevention people check to see if he can in fact be employed as a volunteer emt if not simply dismiss him on the grounds of health. If he fails to perform on a scene document and reprimand him three times. Then dismiss him. Be sure that you have a witness or make him sign the reprimand. And finally if these don't work for you write his job description to disclude him from any activity that may be detrimental to the organization. Make him a logistics officer it's a great cubby hole to get rid of a pest. Terminating a employee is a hard task that nobody likes but look to what is best for the organization and your customers. Oh yeah he can be dismissed he is a volunteer employee he doesnt get paid but he still is an employee.

Good Luck