Many companies are reluctant to work with volunteers due to a lack of commitment and professionalism. This is an ongoing concern for us, and we want to work out a plan to ensure a higher degree of success.

This starts with your motivation behind why would you want to volunteer? People volunteer on SkilledUp Life for many reasons, some of which being:

• Type 1 – Work on something interesting, but not motivated by financial compensation.
• Type 2 – Looking for career change, so want to gain experience before deciding to change and apply for paid opportunities elsewhere.
• Type 3 – Need experience to land a job. Mostly young graduates.

From a tech company’s point of view, they need to make sure whoever volunteers will deliver and not leave the project just after starting or halfway through. Whilst the company is not paying for Volunteers, there is a significant cost on their engagement with the Volunteer. Let me explain this further:

• Creating the Opportunity within the company.
• Publishing on SkilledUp Life.
• Reviewing applications, shortlisting volunteers, interviewing them and finally signing up the volunteer agreement.
• Project familiarisation, agreeing on the scope of work and delivery milestones.
• Changing the internal processes to accommodate volunteers and introduce team members.
• Provide any training needed.
• Monitoring progress and providing the support they need.

Most of our companies are tiny and cannot afford to waste their time with Volunteers who may leave the project unfinished. Their Opportunity Cost is high as most of the above tasks would be undertaken by the CEO.

We need a higher level of commitment from the Volunteers to finish the projects even if they find paid opportunities tomorrow. We want to come up with a mechanism to ensure project abandonments do not happen.

We are not going to hide this problem under the carpet and will work with both Volunteers and Companies to find a solution, as our survival depends on solving this problem, which occurs due to bad actors.