ADD2398 Ambassador Training Tools

The Team London Ambassador programme has successfully delivered an annual Team London Ambassador (Visitor Welcome) volunteering programme every summer since 2012, deploying 600 volunteers across nine locations for the six busiest weeks of the summer. Volunteer retention rates are very high with 65 per cent of current volunteers starting with Team London in 2012.

Team London continues to recruit new volunteers to the programme and creates opportunities for young unemployed people to build their skills through the opportunities the programme offers. The Major Events, Team London Ambassador and UEFA EURO 2020 football championship programmes are actively working towards increasing the diversity of volunteers taking part in the programme. Success in new approaches can already be seen as 27% of applicants for EURO 2020 were under 25 years old and 40% of all applicants were BAME. Similarly on the Team London Ambassador Programme in 2019 13% of applicants were under 25 years old and 28% were BAME – a great increase from the 1% and 18% participating in the programme the previous year. Volunteer and visitor satisfaction rates have remained continually high with volunteer and visitor satisfaction rates consistently above 90%. We aim to continue this with our expanding pool of volunteers, by delivering a more accessible and relevant training programme.

In addition to the Ambassador Programme, Team London has worked with over 120 major sporting and cultural events since 2012 to support their volunteering programmes and brokered over 16,000 volunteering opportunities. Since 2016 Team London have worked with a wide range of major events on their volunteering programmes including both one off partnerships and sustained annual agreements. Highlights have included; New Year’s Eve Fireworks, IAAF Athletics Championships, FIA Formula E Championships, National Park City, Lumiere and most recently UEFA EURO 2020. Through this Major Events Programme Team London is building an excellent reputation for volunteer delivery at major events across London.

Team London Ambassadors have also supported London during emergency situations, such as Grenfell. Ambassadors will continue to support London as and when required in future emergency scenarios.

Team London will be training and deploying 2000 volunteers in 2020 to welcome spectators to London for UEFA EURO 2020. This is the biggest event to come to London since the Olympics and Team London volunteers will be at the heart of this.

Currently, other than an optional pre-event briefing for each specific event, we do not offer training to volunteers on the Major Events volunteer programme (as opposed to the Team London Ambassador programme). Major Events Volunteers are all briefed prior to an event, but this is largely focused on event logistics and does not offer any skills development.

Our Team London Ambassador volunteers currently receive a full day’s foundation training when joining the programme alongside annual refresher training and Team leader training – these cover topics such as customer service, health and safety and diversity and inclusion. This is all delivered in house, with the exception of disability awareness training which is supplied by a specialist organisation.

We will evolve our Ambassador training modules and develop a programme of training that will invest in our Major events volunteers as well, developing their skills, confidence and ability to fulfil their roles as effectively as possible. The resource will be multi use, possibly taking the form of online training modules that can be accessed by volunteers via our volunteer portal and/or workshop resources and activities that can be delivered by Team London staff going forward. The intention is for the training to be generic and accessible enough that it can be used across Team London Ambassadors, Major Events and EURO 2020 whilst also tapping into the specialist knowledge external training providers have, for example in customer service and disability awareness.

We will complete a competitive exercise in order to seek value for money. We anticipate entering into a contract with one service provider; however should we gain a better service by using more than one provider, then we will do so.

The delivery partner will create content about specific topics which could include; Customer services training, presentation skills & body language, rapport building, crowd safety, conflict resolution, disability awareness, team leader training and code of conduct. The content may come in the form of online training modules for volunteers to complete on the Team London volunteer portal (our volunteer management system) or through session plans and resources that can be delivered by Team London staff. We will also seek the advice of delivery partners who as specialists in their fields will help to form the training offering.

This content will be used to develop volunteers’ skills and inform them of best practice when representing Team London. This will help achieve more consistency amongst the behaviours and standards of Team London volunteers alongside providing a platform for them to learn and develop more from volunteering with us. Through creating some online modules, the content will also make volunteering more accessible and flexible for a wider range of volunteers as they would not necessarily have to be at a briefing at a specific place and time.

Equal opportunities are enshrined within Team London’s programmes. Team London volunteering projects aim to ensure that all Londoners can access volunteering opportunities. The programmes eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation, and indeed by doing so support other Londoners equally throughout the city.

Team London volunteer opportunities are open to all that apply, regardless of race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment. The programme is fully inclusive with regards to its selection process, training and deployment ensuring those who require additional support are supported throughout. Our 2018/19 recruitment was amended to ensure further uptake from volunteers with protected characteristics and this is something we will be continuing for our 2020 recruitment to the programme.

By investing in our training, we aim to deliver a more substantial equalities training package to make our volunteers more aware of how to support all visitors to the city and understanding of everyone’s differences. We intend through this training that volunteers representing Team London will be Ambassadors for best behaviour and inclusivity.

Through providing online training modules which we hope to achieve with this work we will also be able to make our volunteering programme more inclusive as those who cannot make briefings e.g. due to caring responsibilities or other commitments will still be able to be briefed and be a part of the final event.

a) Key risks and issues

The risks and issues around this project are minimal – they could include minimal amount of content available for the budget set or content becoming irrelevant at a much shorter notice than planned for; however both of these can be mitigated through careful planning. The biggest risk is timeline to ensure the training is developed in time for EUROs volunteers to use it in May 2020 – yet again through careful planning and procurement of a suitable supplier this should be easily overcome.

b) Links to Mayoral Strategies and priorities

The programme sits within the “Social Integration” strand of Team London’s work and contributes to the following objectives:

• increase levels of social integration by encouraging Londoners in all communities to volunteer and become more active citizens;
• make volunteering more accessible and easier to take part in and create a culture of volunteering across London;
• unify Londoners towards common causes and make them proud of their contribution to a ‘City for all Londoners’; and
• the programme also supports the tourism agenda and was cited in the 2017 Tourism Vision for London as contributing to London’s reputation as a welcoming city . In 2017 the programme won the Tourism Society Award, which recognises outstanding contributions to the development and success of the tourism industry in the UK.

c) Consultations and impact assessments

The online training aspect of the programme would be hosted on our volunteer portal which is entirely GDPR compliant and signed up to TfL and GLA data requirements: thus any information gathered on a volunteer through training modules will be completely secure. This is also mitigated by the fact that no personal or confidential information will be shared or collect through the training modules.

d) Health and safeguarding

Training will be planned to be accessible to all eligible volunteers. A light health risk could be repetitive strain injury (RSI) for online training. However volunteers will be able to save online training and come back to it so will never have to be at a computer for a sustained amount of time. The programme only engages with volunteers 16 years old or over, and any training content designed will be suitable for this audience.

e) Conflict of Interest

We have considered whether there will be a conflict of interest in completing this piece of work. None exist with regards to existing relationships. To ensure no conflict of interest and no advantage to any particular training organisations we will follow the GLA Contracts and Funding code.

Approval is being sought for expenditure of up to £40,000 to develop a training programme for volunteers that can be utilised across the Team London Ambassadors, Major Events and EURO 2020 programmes.

This expenditure will be funded from the 2019-20 Visitor Welcome programme budget within the Team London & Community Sports Unit.