VCA: Matching thousands of volunteers with Byner & Jobrock
Matching over 2000 national, regional and local social organizations with 250,000 volunteers. That is the mission of Vrijwilligers Centrale Amsterdam (VCA).
"We now work with innovative technology based on proven standards in the commercial recruiting sector.”
Mission
From different offices in the city they match people with voluntary roles that really make them happy. They manage to achieve this with a limited budget and a small team of enthusiastic employees. In this interview, Managing Director Henriette van der Meij shares how the partnership with Jobrock/Byner helped VCA to achieve this mission.
Challenge
VCA’s online voluntary job board plays a central role in all of this. It is the place where supply and demand for talent come together. Where organizations can actively publish open voluntary roles on the website from their own portal and volunteers can directly respond.
VCA had already been working with Jobrock for years in this context and was still using an older version of their technology. When this version could no longer be continued, VCA grasped the opportunity for digital growth and innovation and started the search for suitable technology.
Henriëtte van der Meij is Managing Director at VCA. She explains: “That turned out to be quite a challenge, because we attach great importance to quality and we want to optimally serve our organizations and volunteers. We looked for an integration of our system with a CRM and traditional solutions in our industry didn’t provide that.”
VCA and the organizations they serve now have maximum grip and insights into all open roles and volunteers"
High demand matching
In the selection process for a new system, VCA considered several providers, including established parties in the volunteering domain. Eventually the choice fell on a partnership of Jobrock and Byner on the Salesforce platform. Rob Boersma, director of recruitment marketing technology Jobrock: “A logical choice, because worldwide Salesforce is the underlying engine for a growing number of commercial recruitment organizations, such as Randstad, Adecco and House of HR. And Byner is a powerful app that fits perfectly with the updated Jobrock technology.”
Henriëtte van der Meij: “With this choice, we deliberately chose a different approach than other voluntary organizations. Our standards are high and we have a large wish list when it comes to functionality and user-friendliness. We don’t want to make concessions in this respect. And we want to accelerate just like commercial agencies do. That is why we chose Jobrock/Byner with its many possibilities for us and our customers.”
She continues: “We are happy with the result. We now have innovative technology that is based on proven standards from the commercial recruiting sector. At the same time, it feels like a solution that we can fully customize to our needs.”
Social Responsibility
Henriëtte van der Meij: “As a non-profit organization, we do not have the budgets that are standard for digital transformation in the business world. Therefore, we are enormously grateful that the partnership Byner, Jobrock and Talent Peaks was willing to realize this project from their vision of Social Responsibility at a greatly reduced rate.”
Guidance
Rob Boersma explains: “We have guided VCA in their digital transformation from the start. From the design phase, where we thought about goals and requirements, to the implementation including all detailed applications, workflows and fine-tuning of functionalities.”
Henriëtte van der Meij: “For us, it is very valuable to be able to work with a partner who understands our business. Moreover, we were given a unique opportunity to learn from best practices from the commercial staffing sector. That was very valuable for us.”
"We have guided VCA from the design phase - defining goals and requirements - to the implementation including detailed actions, workflows and fine-tuning of functionalities."
Solution
The new voluntary job board was built on the Salesforce platform. From their own community portal in Byner, the organizations publish their vacancies directly on the website. They receive maximum support for this from the workflows and with handy formats, examples, training and tips & tricks from VCA.
Diederik Verstraete, consultant at Byner is proud of the result: “VCA and the organizations they serve now have maximum grip and insight into all open roles and volunteers, complete with all relevant information and in which phase of the process they are in.”
Volunteers (ATS)
On the website, volunteers are easily matched with suitable roles thanks to a mobile and user-friendly interface, a powerful search function and a wide range of filters. A practical application form on the site allows volunteers to respond directly, submit an open application or share an opportunity in their network via email or on social media.
The website is directly linked to the Byner ATS, so all relevant data is stored and processed directly centrally in Byner. When an application is received, the workflow is started, notifications are sent out. The organizations can approach the volunteers directly via Byner, schedule interviews and easily and adequately follow up on all applications. The workflow effectively guides users through the entire process from publication to hiring.
Volunteer Advisors (VCA)
VCA Volunteer Advisors also have access to the entire system so they can optimally help organizations find suitable volunteers and proactively match volunteers with suitable roles.
Diederik Verstraete adds: “Thanks to the dashboards and reporting function in Byner, Volunteer Advisors have real time insight into the number of open roles, the available volunteers and the number of matches carried out. This allows them to make maximum impact for the member organizations.”
Henriëtte van der Meij: “At the moment we are getting to know the system and all its possibilities. Eventually, applicants will also receive automated emails after responding to a voluntary role. This will allow us to check whether an organization has adequately responded to the reaction. Or whether we ourselves still need to take action. This and more possibilities – like advertising with roles – we want to develop further in the future.”
Organizations (CRM)
With the new platform, all actions and communications regarding organizations, open roles and volunteers are centrally registered and processed.
Henriëtte van der Meij: “In the past, employees kept their own records, which took a lot of time to keep track and bring together. We had no overall picture, no historical overview of this important data. Now that everything is collected in one digital environment, VCA is building up a rich database and everyone involved has direct insight into all relevant information around organizations and projects.
We benefit enormously from the workflows and automations in Byner. They lead users step by step through the process and automations save a lot of time. This makes the work less prone to errors, more efficient and more fun.”
Results:
* All core activities converge on one platform
* Control and insights around volunteers and organizations
* Better communication with all stakeholders
* More efficiency and productivity
* Powerful management reportings
Roadmap
With the digital transformation to the Salesforce platform, the foundation has been laid from which VCA can continue to build step by step on adding value to the volunteer market. The new digital environment already offers many advantages, such as more efficient processes, real-time reporting, more insight and better communication with the affiliated organizations.
Henriëtte van der Meij: “The transition has brought us something extra. During the process we learned to look at ourselves in a completely different way. This made us more aware of our added value in the market and the importance of our role as a guide and partner in the volunteering domain.
We have so much knowledge and experience and we want to make that widely available to the social field. Not just for the non-profit sector, but also for commercial organizations with social ambitions. Thanks to our new IT environment, we can expand this role and make better use of it.”
