I'm looking for advice on how to record work hours for volunteers and other workers such as contractors. I know having a sign in and out sheet would be mandatory on work days, but what about work in the cyberworld? I'm sure there are many hours spent behind a laptop for the good of a charitable organization that should be counted as volunteer hours.

Does anyone work with an online "timecard" or "timestamp" website to keep track of what hours are being worked? Does it work for on site, or "in person" time recording as well as online time worked?

Any Suggestions?

Brian Hebert

We use a software program on site. Off site hours are forwarded manually to the person who manages the software and he enters the time manually in the program.

Wesley

You can't be too demanding on that or it will hurt volunteer retention. For instance, "make 'em punch a clock" is a non-starter.

The best you can hope is to have the sign-in sheet, add their names if they forgot, and ask people to track cyber hours. It won't be 100%, but anyone looking at that data will know that.

Our museum has a policy that tries to address this issue: http://www.trolleyride.org/Member_stuff1/Forms/MSM_Policy_No._6_-_Volunteer_Time_Accounting.pdf
BTW, I just noticed that the two forms we use to record volunteer time are not included in this policy and they should be. If you're interested in them PM me and I'll send them to you either as an MS Word document or a PDF. I'll update the policy on our website in a few days.

The only problem with the policy, like anything else in an all-volunteer outfit, is persuading the volunteers to record their time. We have brightly colored signs at the exit doors which say: "Have you recorded your volunteer time?" We also direct the project managers/supervisors to remind the volunteers to record their time at the end of a work session. But all this reminding, while helpful I'm sure, still means that a lot of our volunteers simply forget to record their time.

The other issue that is even worse is the time spent by our managers and others doing the Museum's work at a place other than our two operating sites, i.e., work done at home or at the office, etc. We probably record maybe only 10-20 percent of this time.

We record volunteer time spent in active railway operations in two ways.
1) We use a web-based crew scheduling program called ShiftPlanning that automatically records volunteer hours for those who were part of an operating crew.
2) For each operating shift at both our demonstration railways, we use a "Trip Sheet" that shows the crew on that shift and records the exact times for the operating shift. These are put in a box at the end of the shift and every month the hours are recorded onto a spreadsheet by our Chief Timekeeper.

Thanks!

I think if you do this you gotta make it in a fun or railroady accurate but fun method.

[quote="robertmacdowell"]"You can't be too demanding on that or it will hurt volunteer retention. For instance, "make 'em punch a clock" is a non-starter. "

I disagree. With a little incentive, there's no problem getting people to punch a time clock. In our case (Pennsylvania Trolley Museum) any volunteer who clocks a minimum of 150 hours per year gets a free meal at the annual volunteer awards dinner. For work done away from campus, a manual entry on a time card suffices. PTM had well over 30,000 volunteer hours during 2013.

/s/ Larry
Lawrence G. Lovejoy, P.E.

The the Carter group, aka SPCRR (www.spcrr.org) records hours both for our own records and to submit to our landlord, East Bay Regional Park District...

The park district has a culture of recording volunteer hours, and recognizing volunteers.

The process includes log books in several locations, and our general manager making way too many calls to too many people to ask how many hours they have worked each month... we not some keep logs and report "47.5 hours last month" while others seem to always report in even 100's of hours...

All hours reported are welcome...

Randy