Engage Staff and Volunteers

Staff and volunteers are of utmost importance to your plans for inclusivity and diversity. Recruiting and hiring diverse staff and volunteers helps you create a welcoming atmosphere for the target populations you have identified in your planning processes. It also builds cultural awareness and sensitivity in current staff. Our resources cover every area of staff management.

Build diversity in your workplace by using the excellent strategies found in our diversity management resources. There are successful ideas and models to follow as well as handbooks you can obtain for your use. Learn how management can encourage and support diversity.

Resources for training and evaluation of staff help prepare existing staff and train new staff members. Find out how to serve various population and language groups better as you improve multi cultural customer service. These resources include manuals, courses, videos, handouts, articles, and on-line courses.

Finding the diverse staff you need can be a challenging process, and we have great recruitment ideas for you. Explore these methods forhiring and retaining diverse staff members.

See some practical and successful sample policies to spark your human relations efforts towards increasing and sustaining diverse workplaces. Tailor your own policies by using these models as a starting point.

Volunteers bring diversity and enormous value to your organization. Check out these practical volunteer resources to help you recruit, train, manage, recognize and retain excellent volunteers from many cultures.

Read more about staffing for diversity. Our additional collection of valuable resources brings you even more ideas and plenty of help for your own situation.

Diversity Management

• Inclusiveness at Work: How to Build Inclusive Nonprofit Organizations
  Ready to form a diversity committee? This huge workbook from the Denver Foundation initiative for nonprofit inclusiveness, $35, guides the committee selection and goal setting process. (Order form online)
  http://www.denverfoundation.org/page30592.cfm
• Achieving Diversity: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians
  Librarian's single best source for everything from recruitment to assessment. Dewey, B. I., & Parham, L. (2006). New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers (Available at libraries)
  http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/63703792
• Diversity in the Penn State University Libraries
  Illustrates how a system encourages diversity with replicable ideas like a film festival and a sample plan
  http://www.libraries.psu.edu/admin/diversity/
• Diversity and Cultural Competency
  Boulder's Ghada Elturk advises us to be aware of what we know, and don't, on our journey to cultural competency
  http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=1525
• Colorado Springs Diversity Forum Resource Guide (PDF)
  The resource guide provides action planning and activity sheets including an assessment on hiring practices
  http://cospdiversityforum.org./downloads/DF_Resource_Guide11-2007.pdf

Training & Evaluation

• Library Diversity: Online Training Resources (PDF)
  A resource list from the Special Populations Committee of the Colorado State Library.
  http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdelib/download/pdf/OnlineTrainingLibraryDiversity.pdf
• Spring Institute
  offers customized training on inclusivity and intercultural communication.  They also operate the Interpreter Network of Colorado, offer ESL and library literacy curriculum, and support Immigrant Integration initiatives.  
  http://springinstitute.org/
• Rocky Mountain ADA Center provides toll-free information on disability accessibility; training on the ADA, employment, customer service, and customized topics; and offers free informational publications.
  http://www.adainformation.org/
• WebJunction's Services to Spanish Speakers
  Applicable to all types of special population, includes resources such as Spanish for Library Staff & Spanish Language Outreach Program for librarians interested in expanding services to Spanish speakers--an online course, research, discussion forums, webinars and a monthly update
  http://webjunction.org/do/Navigation?category=7840
• DiversityWeb
  Information including podcasts for academic institutions (not library specific), covers campus practices and resources about diversity in higher education
  http://www.diversityweb.org/
• Customer Service Training: Diversity
  Online training by Houston Area Library for library staff on serving diverse customers along with links to other modules & resources
  http://www.hals.lib.tx.us/cust123/index.html
• Ethnicity & Diversity: Targeting Services to Hispanics and Other Ethnic Groups
  Another short online course from Houston Area Library System regarding effective outreach
  http://www.hals.lib.tx.us/plan123/2ethnicity.htm
• National Business Services Alliance
  NBSA links to assessment tools for hard-to-employ and offers online training for managers of those with disabilities.
  http://nbsalliance.com/focus.html/aip=afd2dtpzQwtW-cNOaf3DeULRAoR2hlJcS,0d

Recruitment

TIP: High attrition rates among librarians of color speak to the need for retention and succession planning in diversity recruitment strategies.

• Diversity, Recruitment, and Retention: Going from Lip Service to Foot Patrol (pdf)
  Why are diversity recruitment and retention relevant to libraries, and how can your library participate? This issue includes other articles and this is another about best practices in recruitment to the profession. Hall, T. & Grady, J. Public Libraries Chicago: Jan/Feb 2006. Vol 45, 1, p. 39-46
  http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/pla/plapublications/publiclibraries/janfeb2006.pdf
• Diversity Counts (pdf)
  2006 report on demographics of library profession
  http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/diversity/diversitycounts/divcounts.cfm
• Hiring for Diversity
  Tips on hiring Latino staff; see more resources at www.infolink.org/diversity/rgstaffing.htm
  http://www.sol-plus.net/plus/todo/hiring.htm
• Diversity Central: Resources for Diversity at Work
  Focus on recruitment and retention with more on the business case for diversity and other links
  http://www.diversityhotwire.com/leaders_toolkit/toolkit/definition1.html

Sample Policies

• Library Faculty/Staff Recruitment & Retention
  Penn State Libraries HR policy on attracting diverse populations
  http://www.psu.edu/president/pia/database/teams/team0286.htm
• A Toolkit for Diversity Management (PDF)
  Toolkit for Australian businesses also includes models for diversity management & recruitment
  http://www.managementmarketing.unimelb.edu.au/mcib/include/diversity/ADDING%20VALUE%20THROUGH%20HRM%20-%20A%20TOOLKIT.pdf
• Policy on Community Analysis
  Tempe Public Library collection development policy addresses community analysis
  http://www.tempe.gov/LIBRARY/admin/policies/colldev.htm

Volunteer Resources

• Diversity and Volunteerism: Deriving Advantage from Difference
  Energize is the premier source on volunteer management; includes links, articles & bookstore
  http://www.energizeinc.com/art/jdiv.html
• Stronger Together: Recruiting & Working with Ethnocultural Volunteers
  Canadian manual on welcoming diverse volunteers--from recruitment to training to support and recognition; useful for staff, boards, managers
  http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/heritage/ComPartnE/Strongr1.htm
• Expanding Nonprofit Inclusiveness: Report from the Pipeline (pdf)
  A summary of findings from the Denver Foundation's work with communities of color and part of their Building Inclusive Nonprofits and Inclusiveness at Work initiatives
  http://www.denverfoundation.org/FileDownload.cfm?file=Pipeline%5FReport%5F2007%2Epdf
• Questions for Reviewing an Organization's Inclusiveness in Volunteer Leadership
  Includes info for volunteers and a bibliography
  http://www.associationforum.org/cmaextras/DivInclVolBP.doc
• Culturally Diverse Advisory Boards and Volunteers
  Also links to several one-page articles on including diverse audiences in community programs, University of Florida, IFAS Extension, 9/05
  http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FY755
• Recruiting Diverse Volunteers
  Short overview of recruitment; good for handout
  http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Recruiting_diverse_volunteers_60075_7.doc

Read More: Management

• Cultural Competency Resources, Alliance for Nonprofit Management
  Extensive resources, samples and links for nonprofit management and development in the area of cultural competency
  http://www.allianceonline.org/cci.ipage/cci_resources.page
• The Importance of Culture in Evaluation: A Practical Guide For Evaluators (2007)
  Evaluations are significantly influenced by the cultures of participants, as well as the evaluator. This report provides insights to help evaluators better understand the influence of different cultures, assess their own work and how they work with others, with the goal of creating more useful evaluations for all stakeholders. From the Colorado Trust.
  http://www.thecoloradotrust.org/index.cfm?fuseAction=Publications.FeaturedDetail&publicationID=338

Read More: Training

• Diversity in the Library: Videos from Library Video Network
  Videos for purchase from LVN showcase diversity and accessibility training with scenarios taken directly from library workers' experiences
  http://www.lvn.org/c-8-diversity.aspx
• Workforce Diversity Network
  Recommended reading, weblinks, articles and conference presentations from corporate perspective
  http://www.workforcediversitynetwork.com
• Putting People First
  A guide to interacting with those with disabilities from the Points of Light Foundation
  http://www.pointsoflight.org/programs/accessibility/people_first.cfm
• Working with Culturally Diverse Youth
  The Colorado Foundation for Families and Children/Colorado Afterschool Network's online training covers this topic in Chapter 3
  http://www.coloradoafterschoolnetwork.org/template.asp?intPageId=126

Read More: Recruitment

• Diversity World
  Links to organizations of various populations regarding career development, recruitment and disability employment resources
  http://www.diversityworld.com/Diversity/general.htm
• The Multicultural Advantage
  Online corporate community with articles, research and links relating to careers, scholarships, mentoring and issues for people working with multicultural issues
  http://www.multiculturaladvantage.com/

Read More: Volunteers

• Alone - But Not Isolated
  European Network of Older Volunteers. (1999). Alone - but not isolated: responding to the communication needs of older people utilizing new technology and older volunteers
  http://worldcat.org/oclc/59426987
• Diversifying the Volunteer Base: Latinos and Volunteerism
  Article specific to recruiting Latinos
  http://www.joe.org/joe/2001august/a1.html

If you find broken links or for further information please contact
Jean Heilig, 303-866-6731 or heilig_j@cde.state.co.us 

     
This project was funded by a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant.