VOLUNTEERS

operating a sound preserved railway enterprise depends on a thorough understanding of how to recruit, train, motivate and retain volunteers, says the Heritage railway Association.

How and why your railways need you

The recruits are lined up on the parade ground. The sergeant major narrows his eyes at them.

‘Right, you ’orrible lot. I need three volunteers. You. You. And you.’

But that’s not how it is in railway preservation. More than 22,000 enthusiastic volunteers help keep the country’s 500 or so miles of steam railways alive and working. Many other national voluntary organisations would be delighted to have access to that amount of manpower. High-profile organisations such as the RNLI, or Britain’s Red Cross and St John Ambulance Brigade combined, operate with fewer volunteers. And the UK’s entire theme park sector functions with little more than 30,000 employees. So with around 40 pairs of willing hands per mile of track, what’s our problem?

As many will know, any environment which combines human beings and moving parts has rich potential for pitfalls and problems. Understanding how to work with volunteers is as fundamental a requirement for success as understanding motive power, lubrication and signalling.

Getting it right with volunteers isn’t just a nice thing to do.

It’s a critical requirement, with social dimensions, safeguarding aspects, health and safety (of course), and employment law always looming. And the same considerations will apply whether you’re working with two volunteers or 200. Volunteers deserve – and are often legally entitled to – the same degree of management, care and welfare as full-time paid employees.

It’s a natural reaction for steam enthusiasts or operators to say: ‘I don’t know anything about people management. I don’t want to spend time researching all the advice, all the guidance and all the rules about volunteers…I just want to run a railway!’

A unIque envIronmenT

Our sector is unique. It’s a high-profile, high-footfall, revenueearning industry, which plays a big part in Britain’s leisure and tourism. In 2016, preserved railways attracted more paying visitors – 9.3 million – than the country’s top five theme parks.

But the overwhelming majority of people who work in preservation do so as unpaid volunteers. No other industry in the UK’s commercial sector works in such a way. Understanding the particular aspects of management, regulation and law that apply to working with volunteers on railways is a highly specialised business. The most authoritative source of help is the Heritage Railway Association. It has decades of learning and insight, contributed first-hand by heritage railway operators. It works with statutory bodies and sector experts to help unravel some of the unique and knotty problems that crop up in a sector that doesn’t really have any direct parallels elsewhere in business or industry.

“22,000 volunteers sounds like a lot,” says HRA chief executive Steve Oates, “but there’s always a need for more help, and recruiting new volunteers can be difficult, especially when you’re trying to appeal to the younger generation.

“The pitch has to be more than just an invitation to have fun with some old machinery on a Saturday. There’s a need to explain the benefits of preserving vital parts of Britain’s social and industrial history, or the personal developments and achievements that can be earned. And, not least, to promote the distinction that comes from doing something different and unusual.”

UNDERSTANDING THE PARTICULAR ASPECTS OF MANAGEMENT, REGULATION AND LAW THAT APPLY TO WORKING WITH VOLUNTEERS ON RAILWAYS IS A HIGHLY SPECIALISED BUSINESS

GOOD REASONS TO STAY

Steve emphasises that training, motivation and feeling valued, with an element of fun thrown in, are all key to retaining volunteers. “After a couple of weekends litter-picking in the car park, the glamour can fade. The means for helping volunteers to stay motivated and enthusiastic are just the same as those in business and industry – but even more important, because volunteers, by definition, aren’t paid. They need to have good reasons to maintain their commitment. Management needs to provide those reasons.”

Health and safety regulations are well understood by heritage railway operators and, in almost all respects, there’s little (if any) difference between a volunteer and a paid employee. Except, of course, that volunteers may have less, if any, previous training, less experience and possibly no qualifications for a given task.

Equality issues are as applicable to volunteers as they are to employees. Understanding disabilities, making provision for disabled volunteers, and helping them meet their challenges in a relatively unforgiving environment is particularly important.

RIGHTS AND ENTITLEMENTS

The rights and entitlements of volunteers can also be unclear.

“It’s important to distinguish between employees and volunteers,” Steve emphasises. “There should be separate policies and procedures for recruiting and managing them. Care needs to be taken when dealing with volunteers to ensure that expectations are not set in such a way that creates mutual obligations, which could be regarded in law as creating a contract. Volunteers should be given the right to refuse tasks and to choose when to work.”

Whether or not they’re paid or rewarded, one piece of legislation – the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act 1920 – has effectively barred heritage railways from accepting volunteers under the age of 16, but this is something that the HRA is actively working to correct (SR494).

“Committed, enthusiastic volunteers can be our best ambassadors, simply by talking about what they do,” says Steve, “and without them, Britain’s heritage railways wouldn’t run on time, if at all. That’s why we at the HRA place so much importance on providing sound guidance and support for our members, in every aspect of working with volunteers. Our knowledge and resources are available to all members and we encourage people to draw on them freely.

“The HRA believes that volunteering should be enjoyable, rewarding and fun. People thinking about whether to volunteer have many choices. If your organisation is the one that engenders a culture of camaraderie, friendly team spirit and a sense of pride and enjoyment in a job well done, then the chances are it’s your organisation that people will want to join.”

UNDERSTANDING HOW TO WORK WITH VOLUNTEERS IS AS FUNDAMENTAL A REQUIREMENT FOR SUCCESS AS UNDERSTANDING MOTIVE POWER, LUBRICATION AND SIGNALLING

THE HIDDEN HELPERS

Any mention of volunteering for a steam railway prompts images of hard labour on the permanent way, cleaning boiler tubes, café cake-baking and marshalling passengers on and off trains. Without the hard work and dedication of the people who volunteer for those tasks, heritage railways wouldn’t run.

But there’s more to it than that. Railways run, ultimately, on money. Many will tell you that ticket sales just pay the overheads. They cover the cost of running the railway and, often, not much more. Funds for acquiring rolling stock, rebuilding stations, building line extensions

– all the things that enable growth and development – must usually come from elsewhere.

That’s where the great value of the subscription-paying member comes into play, says Steve Oates. “Many people don’t have the time, or perhaps the ability, to contribute as working volunteers. They show their support for their chosen railway, and derive their engagement with it, through paying membership and often, quietly, contributing funds. And in doing so, they play a key part in keeping the railway running.”

Steam railways in the UK have come to place significant importance on such members, seeing them as ‘armchair volunteers’. They represent a relatively predictable revenue stream. They don’t need to be trained, qualified or supervised and they don’t turn up every Saturday afternoon, expecting someone to find them something useful to do. But their contribution is nevertheless significant. Faced with a big bill for a boiler repair, or an exceptional acquisition opportunity, the practical volunteers are often limited in what they can contribute. And that’s where paying members can make the difference.

Those contributions can be impressive and often provide the match-funding required to secure grants and loans from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and other funding bodies. In addition, many railways have been the welcome recipients of legacies, bestowed on them by dedicated members.

“HRA member railways understand the benefits of nurturing their paying membership with good communications, privileges and recognition,” says Steve. “They’ll work to ensure those supporters feel valued, and that they’re an important part of the railway family.”

The description ‘armchair volunteers’ doesn’t actually do them justice. “I’d rather call them ‘Hidden Helpers’, says Steve. “That is a more accurate way to describe those who are less a part of the everyday sight of railway operation, but more a part of the financial underpinning that is vital to the survival of any preservation organisation.”