Latest News
South Dublin Tidy towns 01 February 2012, 12.15
A South Dublin County Tidy Towns public meeting is taking place in Tallaght Stadium on Thursday 16th February at 7.30pm. Speakers will include a Tidy Towns competition adjudicator, Public Realm Designer, speaker from Lucan Tidy
Read More 73 
Volunteer Centre Newsletter - January 12 05 January 2012, 16.58
Volunteer Centre Newsletter
Monday 9th January 2012
New Community Hub Announced.
Are you a small community group in South
Read More 406
Celebrate Volunteering! 17 November 2011, 14.40
Celebrate Volunteering on 5th December International Volunteer Day
As you know, 2011 celebrated the European Year of Volunteering and we had many events in South Dublin
Read More 426
New quality mark for volunteering! 07 November 2011, 15.25
Volunteer Ireland is delighted to announce that they recently secured funding from the EU as part of the European Year of Volunteering 2011 to develop a framework for a national quality standard for involving volunteers. This
Read More 559
|
A TALLAGHT VOLUNTEER BUREAU ?STEP-BY-STEP? GUIDE TO DEVELOPING A VOLUNTEER POLICY FOR YOUR ORGANISATION Congratulations! You have decided to recruit volunteers for your organisation. There is no doubt that you are about to benefit from a cost effective human resource, but your organisation is also going to benefit in other ways too: ? Volunteers are a true reflection of community spirit ? Volunteers extend an organisation?s network ? Volunteers increase the diversity of an organisation So, what happens after you recruit your volunteers? Have you thought of the issues that might arise through the involvement of volunteers in your project? Are you and your organisation ready for volunteers? Be Prepared! Before recruiting any volunteers, your organisation needs to be prepared. It needs to know why it wants to involve volunteers in its work, how volunteer positions fit into the organisation and it must be ready to receive willing volunteers when contacted. By having your organisation prepared you are preparing a positive experience for your volunteers, and ensuring that the right people will be assigned to the right opportunity. Always remember, happy volunteers tell people about their experiences, as do unhappy volunteers. Every organisation should have a volunteer policy in place and this step-by-step guide is designed to help you through the stages of putting such a policy together. Obviously this is a guide and will not necessarily apply to every organisation or to every volunteer, but Tallaght Volunteer Bureau are happy to assist groups on an individual basis with specific issues. A formal policy gives clear guidelines for decision making and instruction on how to carry through or act on decisions made, and it assists in the management of potential risks that might occur involving volunteers such as accidents and abuse. It also ensures that things run smoothly and that volunteers are properly recruited and well managed, and it serves as an aide to effectiveness, which allows the organisation to get the most out of its volunteers. STEP 1 The first step in designing a volunteer policy is to decide why the organisation wishes to involve volunteers. This decision will: ? Determine the types of jobs and responsibilities that the organisation will create for volunteers; ? Enable the organisation to better explain to volunteers how and why they are contributing to the work of the organisation; ? Enable the organisation to better explain to staff why volunteers are being sought; ? Enable the organisation to develop a plan for evaluating how effective their use of volunteers has been. STEP 2 After examining why the organisation wishes to recruit and use volunteers a policy can be laid out under the following headings: ? The Volunteer Programme ? Volunteer Management Procedures ? Volunteer Recruitment & Selection ? Volunteer Training Development ? Volunteer Supervision & Evaluation ? Volunteer Support & Recognition ? Volunteer Programme A brief description of how volunteer roles are viewed and valued within the organisation coupled with the organisational mission statement and the definition of a volunteer. It should also refer to the rights and responsibilities of the volunteer. This should broadly cover all volunteers within the project from members of the management committee to project workers and state the position of the organisation on having clients and relatives of clients of the organisation as volunteers. ? Volunteer Management Procedures A statement should be made referring to how volunteer personnel records will be kept and that they will be treated with the same confidentiality as staff records. Statements should also be made on how volunteers are expected to represent the organisation and how they are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of all the privileged information to which they are exposed and how failure to do so could result in termination of the volunteer?s relationship with the organisation. Issues such as dress code, timesheets and the issue of volunteer?s workspace should also be dealt with here. ? Volunteer Recruitment and Selection Under this heading, reference should be made to the volunteer role descriptions that volunteers will be given (similar to job descriptions for staff members), how volunteers will be recruited and whether it is an on-going process and an outline of the interview process. It is also advisable at this stage to clearly state the organisation?s position in relation to security checks on volunteers working with clients that fall into the at risk category and the organisation?s position in relation to collecting references from volunteers. Will a probationary period be offered to all volunteers? How will the length of service of volunteers be assessed and will leave of absence be covered? ? Volunteer Training and Development A statement should be made stating how each volunteer will receive initial orientation training and outline who in the organisation will provide this training. It should also be outlined how the organisation will support further education for the volunteer and/or support volunteer?s attendance at relevant conferences. ? Volunteer Supervision and Evaluation Who will supervise the volunteers, will it be one individual within the organisation or will supervision occur in a line management fashion. Who do volunteers communicate grievances to? What is expected from volunteers in terms of absenteeism and whom do they contact should they be unable to complete a scheduled duty? How will volunteer performances be evaluated and by whom, and how will corrective action be outlined to volunteers? How will the organisation handle the dismissal of a volunteer and what reasons constitute dismissal? ? Volunteer Support and Recognition Here it is important to state the organisation?s position in relation to reimbursing volunteers for out of pocket expenses. Will the organisation refund bus fares, car parking or other such costs? Are all volunteers covered by the organisation?s insurance policy? How will the voluntary effort within an organisation be recognized? Will there be an annual event, or will each volunteer be recognized at different times of the year? STEP 3 Start small and ensure that your policy is distributed to everyone and owned by the organisation. Get the input of staff on the issues outlined in step 2 and use them. It is not much use if you put it together but nobody else sees it and it sits in a file! It may seem that there is a lot involved in developing a volunteer policy but the reward to doing so is immeasurable and can be summed up as follows; Their niceness will let you recruit a volunteer the first time, but only your competence will let you keep them. Steve McCurley Managing volunteers within an organisation can be complex, but by preparing the organisation you are preparing a positive experience for those individuals that are prepared to give up their free time and commit to assisting your project aims. Tallaght Volunteer Bureau is more than happy to assist groups on an individual basis with the preparation of their Volunteer Policies and we can be contacted as follows; Telephone: 01 462 8558 e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it A copy of this step by step guide is available in PDF format from our website at www.volunteertallaght.ie |