8 years
I and many of the hostels that I have worked with find volunteers on workaway.info. I'm booked about six months out with volunteers staying anywhere from one to three months.
How are you finding Employees/Help/Volunteers?
Front Desk Operations
After backpacking the world for over a year, I have spent my fair share of time in hostels. Traveling was one of the best experiences of my life and i'de like to help others do the same.
I constantly saw hostels needing help/volunteers from travelers and I want to build a job board that will help connect travelers with opportunities to work/volunteer opportunities while traveling.
A couple questions I have:
- Do you have difficulties finding workers/volunteers to help run your hostel?
- Do you need English speaking workers on a short term basis (1 week - 6 months)?
- Are you willing to offer Room/Board in exchange for volunteer workers?
- What methods do you use to find employees/volunteers? Flyers, website, online job boards, word of mouth?
- Comments
8 years
A lot of the best volunteers are recruited in-house by cherry picking the most fun/charismatic/interesting/responsible guests and offering them the chance to stay on as part of your team. They already know and like the atmosphere you’re trying to create, so it’s easy for them to understand what they need to do.
So many travelers have flexible schedules that give them the freedom to just pause their trip and work for a while. It always surprises me how willing people are to stay in one place even when they DO have limited travel time.
There are quite a few good websites for finding volunteers as well. Some of the most useful for hostels are:
WorkAway
WorkingTraveller
Worldpackers
HelpX
Some people love volunteers and some find them unreliable. Many hostels completely rely on them to run their business instead of hiring a dedicated team, which can be dangerous. If you’re interested, here are some previous discussions about the legality of volunteers, and what constitutes a reasonable expectation for work exchange compensation.
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