Alternatives for the West End Museum\'s Volunteer

¶ … alternatives for the West End Museum's volunteer problem, we first need to understand what the objectives of the program are. When we know what objectives need to be met, it will be easier to narrow down our list of alternatives and then evaluate them. At present, there is a labor shortage at the West End Museum, and this is hampering the ability of the museum to meet stakeholder needs. Thus, new sources of labor need to be found in order to ensure that the West End Museum is able to meet its high standards going forward.

The second objective is that the cost of the solution should be very low. The West End Museum does not have much money in its budget to improve its service levels. The museum therefore needs to meet this challenge without drawing on scarce resources. Unless the new labor can pay for itself by generating more donations, it will need to have a very low cost, perhaps as low as finding a volunteer or an intern.

The third objective is to improve services levels at the Museum. The need has arisen because there is a chronic labor shortage at the museum. Either long-term volunteers need to be found, or a steady source of volunteers should be found in order to sustain the museum in the long run. The ideal solution would have volunteers who can stay with the museum for a long time, but in lieu of that a program that feeds a steady supply of volunteers to the museum would be adequate as well. There are some other, more minor factors as well, and they are listed in the following table:

Objective

Reason

Importance

Increase labor supply

The museum is suffering from a shortfall in labor; current volunteers are overworked and staff are as well

HIGH

Low cost

The museum has limited funds, and does not believe that it has access to new funds to support more labor.

HIGH

Improve services

A variety of stakeholder groups have noted that overworked staff are struggling to deliver services. As a result, the new workers should be able to deliver high standards of service

HIGH

Ease of Implementation

The current team is overworked, so ideally the program will not require much of their time and effort

MEDIUM

Extend reach

The museum's audience is not as broad as directors would like it to be. A program would be beneficial if it can result in broadened appeal

LOW