The Volunteer Charter
We would like to celebrate our commitment to Good Practice in managing volunteers by inviting organizations to sign up to the Charter. This Charter is a document developed by local volunteer involving organisations (VIOs) and volunteers in the borough, it establishes minimum standards that organizations should have in place when involving volunteers.
Read the Charter, where the ten points reveal gaps in your practices we can provide model documents and one-to-one support to help you achieve the standard. The Charter will also inform our training schedule. If you are unsure whether your organization currently works within the requirements of the Charter please contact us for further assistance. Through this holistic approach we hope to be able to provide you with the support that you need.
- Equality
Volunteers are treated fairly in accordance with equal opportunities legislation. - Role
Volutreers are given a clear description of their role and responsibilities. - Induction
Volunteers are introduced to all relevant policies, procedures, staff and volunteers. - Support
Volunteers are assigned a staff member to provide ongoing feedback and support. - Training
Volunteers are provided with training to carry out their roles effectively. - Confidentiality
Volunteers personal information is secured under the Data Protection Act. - Safety
Volunteers work in a safe, risk-assessed environment with insurance protection. - Expenses
Volunteers are reimbursed travel and any other agreed out of pocket expenses. - Complaints
Volunteers have access to a complaints procedure should their concerns go unattended. - References
Volunteers recieve a reference following an agreed period of satisfactory volunteering.
Equality
While volunteers are generally not covered by equal opportunities legislation, it is good practice to include them in your equal opportunities and/or diversity policy. Ideally all your policies will have a commitment to equal opportunities and diversity at their heart. Restating your commitment to offering equal opportunity to volunteers from different backgrounds within your volunteer policy shows that you take the issue seriously and should indicate that all your organisation’s other policies have been written with inclusivity in mind.
Many organisations are now becoming aware of the benefits of having a diverse volunteer ‘workforce’. A diverse group of volunteers makes your organization more welcoming to and more representative of the local community. Involving people from differing backgrounds, ages, cultures, genders and outlooks helps throw up new ideas and fresh approaches. Having a diversity policy in place helps move toward increasing the diversity of your volunteers.
Role
It is good practice to have clear volunteer role descriptions which set out what volunteers can expect to do and what you will provide to enable them to do this. You might start by listing all the tasks which volunteers could help with, and then group these into defined roles. This does not have to be inflexible; you may sometimes prefer to work in a way that responds to what volunteers can offer and creates a role for them.
A role description is a useful checklist of things to consider so that you and the volunteer are both clear about the role and expectations. Volunteering opportunities that are boring or unsatisfactory may lead to recruitment difficulties and a high turnover of volunteers. It is worth being flexible and creating volunteering opportunities that are what people want; interesting, challenging and rewarding, as they attract volunteers who will be enthusiastic and committed.
Induction
Having a well thought out induction for new volunteers is extremely important. All too often inductions consist of just reading policies and being introduced to staff and then that’s it. If properly planned the induction can be used for both the volunteer and the volunteer co-ordinator to develop the best ways of working together. Remember that for the first few weeks that they are with you the volunteer will still be making up their mind about whether they want to stay with the organisation. Obviously ideally they will stay but this period can be quite useful for them to assess whether your organisation is right for them. By using the induction to help them work through this process you are much more likely to find out about their motivations and end up with a committed happy volunteer at the end.
To make this process easier it can be a good idea to introduce the induction as a trial or taster period. At the end you can both sit down together and talk about how the volunteer feels they are doing, what kind of support they feel they need, any areas where they would like training and which types of work interest them most. It can be a good idea to talk to the volunteer on their first day about what you hope to cover in their induction period. People can often be very nervous when they start a new role just as they would be if they were starting a new job. By explaining exactly what they will be doing over the next few weeks you will help to put them at their ease by letting them know what to expect. There is always room for flexibility later on in the induction period when you both know each other better.
Support
Good support and supervision is about finding an effective balance between the needs of the volunteer and the needs of the organisation. Because volunteers are not paid, they will only make the effort and stay the course with real enthusiasm and commitment if they are respected and their needs for good communication, involvement and appreciation are properly met. Clearly defined and well advertised forms of support are necessary. Volunteers will not respond to vague offers of support unless there is an identifiable means by which they can obtain it. If you expect volunteers to attend support sessions and it is a requirement of their volunteering then it should be made clear when a volunteer first offers their time.
Specific session times allow more structured control of the co-ordinators time and may help you to focus on the task rather than trying to juggle volunteer support with other priorities or having a more “open door” approach. However the times may need to vary to fit in with volunteers’ schedules as well as the staff responsible. Group support meetings allow volunteers to share ideas and get to know each other better. But regular, one-to-one meetings where volunteers can receive ongoing feedback about their volunteering experience, however time-consuming, are probably the best way of making sure all volunteers are supported properly for maximum motivation and volunteer retention.
Training
Volunteers should all receive training to carry out their tasks effectively, though the actual training volunteers receive will depend entirely on the kind of work they will be doing, and on the numbers of volunteers you need to train at any one time. Initial training may be required to enable the volunteer to understand their role, carry out their tasks effectively, and depending on the role may take hours, days or weeks to complete.
Ongoing or refresher training may also be required to keep volunteers skills fresh, or to enable them to develop within the organisation and to take on further tasks over time. Attending the personal development needs of volunteers in this way may also have appreciable impact on longer term volunteer commitment and retention.
When developing a training policy you will need to decide what will best meet your organisational requirements, bearing in mind the resources you have at your disposal, though where organisations are of a reasonable size a training budget for volunteers is recommended.
The Volunteer Centre Good Practice Officer can advise and assist on the design and development of low cost volunteer training and development programmes and the Volunteer Centre also runs training for volunteers and staff.
Confidentiality
All volunteers have a right to ensure that any personal data kept on file as a necessary aspect of running an efficient volunteer programme is treated with as much respect, carefulness and attention to detail as personal data of salaried staff. Failure to do so may be covered by the Data Protection Act and lead an organization open to legal challenge. If information kept on volunteers falls into the Data Protection Act 1998’s definition of ‘personal data’, the organisation has legal duties concerning the collection, storage, use of and disclosure of such information under the following checklist headings:
Under the law, personal data must be:
• Fairly and lawfully processed.
• Obtained only for specified and lawful purposes.
• Adequate, relevant and not excessive for the purposes for which it is processed.
• Accurate and up to date.
• Not kept longer than necessary.
• Processed in accordance with the rights of individuals.
• Kept secure.
• Not transferred to countries where data protection legislation is inadequate.
Under the Act, volunteers may also claim access to any references that are a part of a volunteer recruitment process. But disclosure will almost certainly identify the referee. The employer must decide if the worker’s right to know what information is held about him or her and its source outweighs the right to privacy of the third party who can be identified through releasing the information.
Safety
Although much of the health and safety legislation applies only to workers and employees, organisations do have a duty of care towards volunteers. This means that reasonable steps should be taken to reduce the probability and seriousness of injury to volunteers. This could mean giving them proper information, training, use of safety clothing, closer supervision and so on.
There are also duties on employers under section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 to take account of the health and safety of those people (other than their employees) who may be affected by their activities, and to give them relevant health and safety information.
There is a duty on employers to carry out risk assessments, which must be in writing where there are five or more employees.
It is hard to argue that the duty of care is being taken seriously if no effort has been made to look at what could go wrong for volunteers and how they could be protected. This means it makes sense for even volunteer-only organisations to adopt a systematic approach. When working with volunteers it also makes sense to have an overall risk assessment for the volunteer programme itself and smaller risk assessments for individual roles.
Expenses
It is essential good practice to reimburse any reasonable expenses incurred as part of voluntary work. While expenses considered “reasonable” may vary from organisation to organisation, all good practice volunteering and funding bodies now agree that travel by public transport or car to carry out volunteering and the reimbursement of meals for volunteers during longer periods of work such as a full working day should be considered a basic minimum. Clearly organisations should safeguard against malpractice by having clear policies and procedures for guidance to volunteers on legitimate expenses claims and evidence required by organisation auditors in the way of receipts, tube tickets etc. For example travel guidance may stipulate that travel claimed must be by the cheapest fare, guidance on meals may set an upper price limit e.g. £4 based on the nearest local cafes, postage guidance may stipulate 2nd class etc.
Other expenses paid by organisations include payment for specialist training considered necessary for carrying out volunteer functions to a high standard; payment for standard protective clothing to be fitted to a volunteers personal measurements; costs incurred by those with responsibility for the sole care of dependants including children and elderly family members and in certain circumstances taxi fares for people with disabilities or volunteers at late night projects needing to travel home after midnight.
Complaints
There is no legal obligation for an organisation to have a volunteer complaints procedure, but it is good practice to ensure that volunteers who have complaints get a fair and prompt response, an explanation as to why the circumstances giving rise to their complaint exists and a resolution of the concerns raised, if at all possible, at the earliest possible stage.
Complaints are a valuable form of internal customer feedback and organisations should not be defensive when responding to them from staff or from volunteers. Serious or persistent complaints on the same issues may even help management focus on gaps or weakness in the organisations policy and practices and result in valuable service development.
Although they are not paid employees, volunteers are an integral part of the workplace team and any concerns they may have about their treatment should be given the same attention and respect that any staff member would receive. Good communication between staff and volunteers and a positive working environment should ensure that minor problems arising are resolved with the volunteer coordinator on an informal basis. However complaints of a serious nature are best handled formally in face-to–face meetings, with a clear record of progress at each stage. Even in relatively small organisations there should be a hierarchy for complaints procedures so that if a volunteer feels that their concerns not been resolved satisfactorily, they can appeal to a more senior staff member. Because lengthy and complex procedures may discourage volunteers from using a complaints procedure every effort should be taken to ensure that procedures are short, clear and accessible.
References
It is up to the discretion of individual organisations or projects if they want to ask for references from volunteers, though it is strongly recommended as ‘good practice’ to do so. Obtaining references can give an organisation and their clients or users added security around legal areas particularly when volunteers are working with vulnerable people or are working unsupervised in relatively complex work environments.
There are a cnumber of ways in which organisations can ask for references to be supplied e.g. written (letter/ email) or oral (telephone/ face to face). Whichever way an organisation chooses to accept references the key areas that are usually addressed include the volunteers suitability to work with the client group, their punctuality and timekeeping, teamworking skills and interest in their own personal development. Organisations should however be aware that a lot of potential volunteers may never have been employed, or may have been out of employment for a considerable time so it is also important to be sensitive to the fact that some people may find it difficult to get a reference due to a variety of reasons and each case should be considered individually.
When requesting a reference you should bear in mind that if the volunteer has never had to provide a reference before it can be quite scary and seem very formal and off-putting. Explain why you take references, what you ask and what you do with them. References should be provided in writing and it is a good idea to provide referees with a 'Volunteer Reference Form' and a supporting 'Volunteer Reference Cover Letter'. The Reference Form will ask specific questions which will make it easier for the referee to provide the answers and information you require. Attempts should always be made to ensure that the references are genuine and if this is in any doubt other references should be sought.