CRT looking for volunteers

[Heartland]

I saw an advertisement on the electronic display board near the Metro Stop at the Library in Birmingham where the CRT are looking for help seemingly of the unpaid variety. I wonder how much adverts such as this cost and is it a drain on CRT funds?

  

[ditchcrawler]

37 minutes ago, Heartland said:

I saw an advertisement on the electronic display board near the Metro Stop at the Library in Birmingham where the CRT are looking for help seemingly of the unpaid variety. I wonder how much adverts such as this cost and is it a drain on CRT funds?

  

A job for all the want a be traffic wardens 

[IanD]

15 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

A job for all the want a be traffic wardens 

You mean they're going to start giving boaters parking tickets? 😉

[ditchcrawler]

10 minutes ago, IanD said:

You mean they're going to start giving boaters parking tickets? 😉

No, just people looking for power. Have you watched part 2 of the Paddington film? Mr Curry 

 

[IanD]

23 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

No, just people looking for power. Have you watched part 2 of the Paddington film? Mr Curry 

 

Ah, you mean jobsworths!

 

 

[Allan(nb Albert)]

1 hour ago, Heartland said:

I saw an advertisement on the electronic display board near the Metro Stop at the Library in Birmingham where the CRT are looking for help seemingly of the unpaid variety. I wonder how much adverts such as this cost and is it a drain on CRT funds?

  

I guess it costs a lot less than the TV advertising campaign of a few years ago. Mind you that was suddenly pulled when the Toddbrook incident gave them free press coverage.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

2 hours ago, Heartland said:

I saw an advertisement on the electronic display board near the Metro Stop at the Library in Birmingham where the CRT are looking for help seemingly of the unpaid variety. I wonder how much adverts such as this cost and is it a drain on CRT funds?

  

Birmingham City Council need all their pennies so I hope they’re charging,

I haven’t read up on it yet but I understand Birmingham’s gone backrupt?

[LadyG]

Volunteers are not free labour, they have to be interviewed, trained, kitted out, supervised, travel expenses etc, adding on a few quid to find suitable volunteers in area where they are needed has to be cost effective.

It also raises awareness,  one of the requirements for government funding.

Edited January 19 by LadyG

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

If only we’d kept some of them German prisoners.

 

[Alan de Enfield]

41 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

If only we’d kept some of them German prisoners.

 

 

 

By now they'd be a liability rather than an asset, we'd be supplying wheelchairs, Zimmer frames and incontinece pads at an ever increasing rate, mind you, the incontinence, the drooling and dribbling may help reduce watershortages.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

21 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

By now they'd be a liability rather than an asset, we'd be supplying wheelchairs, Zimmer frames and incontinece pads at an ever increasing rate, mind you, the incontinence, the drooling and dribbling may help reduce watershortages.

I’d better not say that description reminds me of some of the current volunteers. 
 

..or a lot of boaters 🤣

Edited January 19 by beerbeerbeerbeerbeer

[magnetman]

Someone worked out how much the volunteers cost overall on an hourly rate when all the costs of arranging the scheme are taken into account. 

 

I seem to recall it was more than an hourly wage would have been for the job. 

 

Maybe this is made up but I would not be surprised if it was true. 

 

 

[Momac]

As a general guesstimate overheads usually equal salary.

So not surprising if the cost per volunteer does  equal a decent wage. It never costs simply a wage to employ someone.

If they were paid employees  the cost would of course be even greater .

 

[Arthur Marshall]

1 hour ago, magnetman said:

Someone worked out how much the volunteers cost overall on an hourly rate when all the costs of arranging the scheme are taken into account. 

 

I seem to recall it was more than an hourly wage would have been for the job. 

 

Maybe this is made up but I would not be surprised if it was true. 

 

 

But they save NI, holiday and sick pay and they can be laid off without problems.

[Allan(nb Albert)]

2 hours ago, magnetman said:

Someone worked out how much the volunteers cost overall on an hourly rate when all the costs of arranging the scheme are taken into account. 

 

I seem to recall it was more than an hourly wage would have been for the job. 

 

Maybe this is made up but I would not be surprised if it was true. 

 

 

That was me some years ago. I don't know if more up to date information is available. 

 

On a more general note, the problem seems to be that CRT is below target on volunteer man hours this year. 

[MtB]

4 hours ago, MartynG said:

As a general guesstimate overheads usually equal salary.

 

 

My experience as an employer was exactly this.

 

Take the salary and double it to arrive at the total cost of that employee to the employer. 

 

Mind you this was 30 years ago, its probably triple the salary now. 

 

 

 

 

[magnetman]

Is the volunteer scheme a way of saving money or just some sort of kpi thing? 

 

I think it is rather a dodgy arrangement because it discourages some younger people who may be incredibly keen on canals but need to be paid to work so well orf retired types push them out of their preferred career path. 

 

Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick. I've never had a job in my life paid or unpaid so am entirely out of touch with this sort of issue but the volunteer thing on waterways bothers me for some reason. 

 

 

[Mrs Bearwood Boster]

Husband used to volly in Brum til' we moved to Shropshire.He used to help litter picking,glass collecting from the pubs etc-was always an extra body as didn't want to do/take an individual's paid job.Some of the roles now seem very much to be instead of paying a C&RT  worker.

[MtB]

10 hours ago, magnetman said:

but the volunteer thing on waterways bothers me for some reason. 

 

Me too. Plus managing volunteers must be like herding cats as they give their time for free.

 

Also because the disciplinary procedures associated with employment including the ultimate sanction of dismissal are broadly meaningless to a volunteer. 

 

 

[Momac]

10 hours ago, Mrs Bearwood Boster said:

.Some of the roles now seem very much to be instead of paying a C&RT  worker.

That has been the case for some years now.

On the River Trent only a very small number of lock keepers are now paid employees . In the not too distant past the non tidal locks were all manned by paid lock keepers , although it was mostly seasonally employed  work and probably a low rate of pay.

 

 

[Grassman]

Nobody has mentioned CRT's contracting out some of the work which must figure in the equation somewhere. I wonder how the cost of that compares with using their own staff and/or volunteers?

 

For our (IWA) offside vegetation cutting I have 2 teams of 6 volunteers and each team does about 6 hours a day. I think the UK minimum wage for paid staff is £10 an hour, so using volunteers is saving them at least £360 per each days work. Some (not all) of us are trained to use a pole chain saw and wood chipper which cost CRT about £150 for each course but the certificate lasts for 5 years. All other training such as helming, is done 'in house'.

 

Other costs are medicals (about £100 a year per volunteer), a mileage allowance (£0.43ppm) which less than 50% actually claim. Then there's things like the provision of PPE etc, but they'd have those costs using their own staff anyway.

 

I think the value of volunteers is subjective, in that it comes down to how important what they do is deemed to be. Things like litter picking, painting, other 'cosmetic' jobs, and lock volunteering. The navigations could manage without them but would be a worse place if these jobs weren't done.  Each has its value and merits but are they as important as something like vegetation cutting which has a direct benefit to navigation? Opinions on this will no doubt differ.

 

Then there's the perceived benefits of volunteers being the public face of CRT. When doing the offside veg cutting we get a lot of nice compliments from the public as well as boaters, and like them or loathe them the lock keepers engagement with the general public is good for CRT, especially given the fact that they are trying to get the public's support at the moment.

 

Whether it's a good thing or not, CRT are currently looking to deploy volunteers more and more for vital maintenance work such as dredging for example. Starting shortly they will be doing some dredging in our area, and we will be assisting with shuffling the hopper boats, taking away a full ones and feeding the dredger with empty ones. Is this a good thing or should they stick to contractors or their own staff for this type of work?

[magnetman]

26 minutes ago, MartynG said:

That has been the case for some years now.

On the River Trent only a very small number of lock keepers are now paid employees . In the not too distant past the non tidal locks were all manned by paid lock keepers , although it was mostly seasonally employed  work and probably a low rate of pay.

 

 

 

That is interesting. We have some volunteer lock keepers on the Thames but they are not authorised to operate the locks by themselves. They must be operating in addition to a paid employee lock keeper on duty at the time. 

 

The result is interesting in that occasionally locks go unmanned even in mid summer due to lock keepers 'double manning' and the volunteers being unable to keep a lock going. 

 

Its a bit ironic in a way. 

 

 

 

 

[Grassman]

I forgot to point out that CRT also have things like NI contributions, holiday pay, sick pay, pension costs etc, to add to the basic salary  meaning that the savings with using volunteers are obviously more than those I mentioned.

[Barneyp]

12 hours ago, Mrs Bearwood Boster said:

Husband used to volly in Brum til' we moved to Shropshire.He used to help litter picking,glass collecting from the pubs etc-was always an extra body as didn't want to do/take an individual's paid job.Some of the roles now seem very much to be instead of paying a C&RT  worker.

Given the current state of CRT finances I imagine it is a case of get a volunteer or have no one in the role.

CRT would probably like to be able to pay employees or contractors to carry out tasks, they are generally easier to manage and more likely to do what they're told, but without the money to do that they have to rely on volunteers - who are cheaper but by no means free.

22 hours ago, Heartland said:

I saw an advertisement on the electronic display board near the Metro Stop at the Library in Birmingham where the CRT are looking for help seemingly of the unpaid variety. I wonder how much adverts such as this cost and is it a drain on CRT funds?

  

The answer to is it a drain on CRT funds is going to be complex, certainly it uses CRT funds, but is the payback worth more than the initial cost.

i.e. Is the overall cost of recruiting, training, managing, and equipping volunteers less than the value of the work they do.

Calculating the first half (recruiting, training, managing and equipping) would be difficult, but CRT should be able to do it.

The second half is more complex, some of the things the volunteers do e.g. maintenance, may be easy to but a value on, but calculating the value of volunteer lock keepers is harder - especially when they are stationed on locks that wouldn't otherwise have a lock keeper.

[IanD]

When all the overheads are taken into account volunteers will always be cheaper than paid employees. In-house labour will be cheaper than civil engineering contractors only if they can be kept busy all the time, which you'd think was not easy on the canals -- also capital expenditure on equipment is higher if it spends a lot of time idle.

 

That's the reason many companies have reduced or got rid of their in-house employees in favour of contracting out, it's less hassle and often cheaper, it's not like the old days when labour and equipment costs were much lower. I expect the same is true for CART today, however much people hanker for the old days they're long gone... 😞

Edited January 20 by IanD