The Cooperation of Volunteers and Staff at Integreat

The Integreat team is organised according to the “Community Engagement” approach, where a few employees coordinate a large number of volunteers. Due to the increasing transfer of volunteers into full-time positions and greater professionalisation, some structures have changed in 2018 and 2019, but this still applies. The different areas of work are covered by larger or smaller teams, depending on needs.

A large proportion of employees are studying at the same time, so our organisation must be able to respond to individual working time models and dynamic project coordination requirements.  Persons who have been part of the team and project for a longer period of time serve as internal consultants and take care of the familiarization of new employees. Full-time employees are available in the individual work areas as accounts and contact persons for uncertainties and operational challenges with time limits. At the quarterly Integreat conferences all employees meet in person for two days and can exchange information about current tasks, challenges, needs and developments as well as jointly define strategic milestones and goals. In this way, good cooperation and a common organisational culture is maintained even in a virtual organisation whose members span different parts of Germany.