• Using Hosted Groups and Volunteers as Workers in the Forest Service
• Downsizing and Cutbacks Influencing All Aspects of the Work Culture
• Coordinators Are Stressed, Spread Thin, and Multitasked
• Interorganizational Relationships: Not a New Idea
• Weak Relationships With Outside Organizations
• Research Specific to Volunteers and Hosted Programs.
• Coordinators' Work Roles Are Not clearly Defined
• Decreasing Job Stress, Maintaining Safety, and Reducing Liability in the Forest Service

Using Hosted Groups and Volunteers as Workers in the Forest Service

Quite early on in this project, it became apparent that the problems confronting today's coordinators are no longer related to the leadership of traditional Forest Service seasonal field crews. An updated version of the training program Supervisor and the Work Crew was deemed unnecessary for field-crew supervisors. The project team redirected its focus toward the problems being created by volunteer and hosted workgroups. The objective of the project became gaining a better understanding of the new problems facing coordinators and the ongoing changes occurring in the Forest Service fieldwork culture that directly affect the supervision of new kinds of workgroups. Several major themes concerning these new workgroups were pulled from interviews with volunteer and hosted crew coordinators. Previous and current literature in the areas of downsizing and cutbacks, interorganizational relationships, and occupational role conflict may help to further clarify the project's findings.

Downsizing and Cutbacks Influence All Aspects of the Work Culture

Organizational downsizing and cutbacks have important implications for understanding changes in the labor force (Curtis 1989). Cutbacks are a common phenomenon in both public and private agencies. They tend to amplify existing problems, especially those concerning trust, morale, productivity, and depression. Cutbacks hinder authority relations, employee placements, and directives such as the job descriptions of remaining personnel (Rubin 1984). Due to downsizing, the modern workplace has been characterized by the growing use of temporary labor on an as-needed basis to perform specific jobs for single projects and the widespread use of subcontracting to other agencies to provide services that once were completed by inhouse employees (Leicht 1998). This project team found a number of these problems in today's Forest Service fieldwork culture.

Coordinators Are Stressed, Spread Thin, and Multitasked

Shaw and Barrett-Power (1997) discussed a need for a multilevel stress-based approach to downsizing. With this approach, organizations, workgroups, and individuals are examined simultaneously. In the stress-based model, downsizing is described as a collection of stressors focusing on pressures for labor force reductions that increase demands on the organization, workgroup, and individual employees. The model allows us to look at the problems faced by volunteer and hosted group coordinators through a job-stress lens. A major theme from the recent project findings is that field crew coordinators have many other tasks and are spread thin. These overworked and overtasked employees are unable to give their hosted and volunteer groups much time or attention. Safety hazards are a result and increase Forest Service liability.

Interorganizational Relationships: Not a New Idea

Hosted partnerships and the use of volunteers are not just the result of downsizing. The literature refers to such partnerships as interorganizational relationships, called IORs (Hall 1991). All organizations have relationships with other agencies. Some are trivial and others are very important. These relationships are designed so organizations can help each other. They present a means of adapting to, rather than simply responding to, pressures on the organizations (Metcalf 1976). Several reasons for the development of IORs have been identified in previous research. The reasons include legal, political, technical, economic, demographic, and cultural (Hall 1991).

Weak Relationships With Outside Organizations

As budget cuts and downsizing continue, the number of IORs increases (Hall 1991). As the number of relationships with IORs rises in an organization (such as when Forest Service coordinators work with many types of hosted programs and volunteer groups), the quality of each relationship is weakened. This problem is illustrated by limited resources. Few Forest Service employees are able to work with these new workgroups. Other resources, such as money, tools, and safety equipment are limited. Most IORs in the Forest Service are not receiving the careful attention or help they need.

Research Specific to Volunteers and Hosted Programs

Previous and current research has explored specific issues related to the IORs affiliated with the Forest Service (these include volunteers and employment programs for seniors, youth groups, and criminal offenders). A great deal of research has explored volunteer motivation and retention in organizations (Gora and Nemerowicz 1991; Clary, Snyder, and Ridge 1992; Grube and Piliavin 2000). Literature has also focused on the vulnerability of older Americans to insufficient wages and other exploitation in the work environment (Soumerai and Avon 1983; Golden 1990; Morrison 1986; Kahne 1985). Youth group community- based programs (Wardell 1988) and work-release programs for juvenile and adult offenders (Turner and Petersilia 1996) have also received a fair amount of attention. Although this research is valid and remains an important aspect of this project, it is not the focal point of our findings and will not be discussed in further detail.

Coordinators' Work Roles Are Not Clearly Defined

The most pressing issue identified by this project is the undefined and confusing role of hosted program and volunteer coordinators. All coordinators expressed concern about the ambiguity of their role as coordinator because of their lack of training and their other duties. Role ambiguity and role conflict have been demonstrated to be indicators of job stress (O'Driscoll and Beehr 1994) and of unsatisfactory outcomes, such as safety errors (Toffler 1981). Role ambiguity results when employees lack clear information about what is expected of them as far as tasks, responsibility, and behavioral norms connected to their position. Role conflict occurs when the expectations of the organization have been communicated, but the expectations are incongruent with those of the role occupant or when the expectations of each role are incompatible (Kahn and others 1964; Graen 1976; Van Sell, Brief, and Schuler 1977). Organizations can reduce stress through such practices as clearly defining tasks, objectives, and job responsibilities, and setting realistic goals for the employee (Bryan 1996).

Decreasing Job Stress, Maintaining Safety, and Reducing Liability in the Forest Service

The primary functions carried out by coordinators are often unrelated to working with volunteers and hosted workgroups. Forest Service coordinators say their roles are not well defined. Two steps need to be taken to clarify the coordinator's roles:

• Examine the relationship between the coordinators' perceptions of their roles and how these roles are defined formally
• Explain how a coordinator's role relates to volunteer and hosted programs.

These two steps are critical for decreasing safety risks and liability in the field.

Working with hosted crews and volunteers is often collateral to the coordinators' primary duties. For most, it is not an assigned role but a variety of tasks that they do when they can find the time. The findings of this project and past research indicate that more attention needs to be directed to defining the coordinator's role and clarifying how the coordinator fits into volunteer and hosted programs. The main findings of this project all point to the critical importance of the relationship between the coordinator and volunteer and hosted programs to ensure that safety standards are established through training and enforced in the field.