How many hours to assign

A helpful guide to deciding the amount of hours a fan worker should work.

The most important experience you’ll want to provide to your event volunteer team is the mixture of enjoying their favorite festival with the opportunity to work hands on. That being said, deciding the amount of hours that workers are required to fulfill throughout an event can depend on various factors that are unique to each event. Sound tricky? No worries, with the help of this guide and some practice you should be a scheduling guru in no time!

FACTOR IN THE LENGTH OF THE EVENT

When deciding on the overall work hours and each shift length, first things first – how long is the festival? Some festivals run later than others, some earlier than others so you’ll need to adjust the work hours based on the schedule of the event.

The majority of festivals last about 3-4 days, so you’ll definitely want your fan workers to have a day off to rest and enjoy the festival. For a festival that last 3 days, have the volunteers work 2 out of 3 days. Same goes for 4 day festivals – have the volunteers work 3 out of 4 days. The longer the event is, the more days the volunteers will have off (5 day festie – 2 days off!).

Now to decide how many hours per shift each volunteer requires. You want to meet the needs of the festival but you also want your fan workers to have time to rest between shifts. Consider the time frame volunteers are needed on a daily basis in each department, for instance, a toll booth shift may begin at 8AM and run through until 12AM – you could break that into two 8 hour shifts.

FACTOR IN THE NEEDS OF EACH DEPARTMENT 

You’ll want to be fair to your workers while also fulfilling the needs of the festival and what each department has requested labor wise. Sometimes you have to work and negotiate with department supervisors on the amount of hours that are required so that everyone will be able to manage the needs while still having time off.

You may have to schedule workers less shifts but longer hours if the demands are needed.

KEEPING AN AVERAGE WORK HOUR REQUIREMENT

Sometimes it can be difficult to have every volunteer work the same amount of hours, especially if some departments require longer shifts than others. By stating a total average, it allows for more flexibility in work schedules and lets the fan worker know ahead of time that hours could vary by a small amount.

Helpful tip: let fan workers know to be in contact if anyone wants to work a little more, that way, you can schedule those volunteers for the shifts that require a few extra hours!

With festiVOL™, we assist clients in making decisions on work hours and program set up, based on the industry norms and influencing factors. If you are ready to tap in, head to www.festiVOL.com/pricing to purchase your license to your next event’s success!