The volunteers that work for you

What if you viewed the people that worked for you as volunteers?

Volunteers, of course, don't owe you anything. Treat them like crap, and they'll disappear.

How would your management techniques change? How would you motivate them? How would you get the bad, boring jobs done?

It's not impossible. I've worked at several organizations where the volunteers were willing to do mundane, thankless, even painful jobs at great personal effort. Sometimes, I was that volunteer.

It's an important question, because in a very real way -- more than ever, and even moreso in the future -- that's what they are: volunteers. They can leave, especially the ones you need the most. And "the cause" is more near and dear to their hearts than any a non-profit could offer: a job that interests and challenges them (while offering financial rewards, of course).