Valuing and Protecting Our volunteers
"Our volunteers are precious individuals dedicated to serving in a myriad of ways"
Our volunteers are precious. Week in, week out, dedicated individuals seek to serve our churches in a myriad of ways. From the worship teams who diligently meet midweek to practice and prepare for Sunday worship, to the enthusiastic leaders who run engaging Kids Church programs or maybe the gifted hosts who serve the post service cup of coffee with a smile and a heart for service, all are incredibly valuable and deserve to be protected.
Without the dedication of our volunteers, it is safe to say that the effectiveness of churches and ministries in our communities would be significantly held back.
In addition to serving the mission of the church and the message of Jesus, volunteering fosters several personal benefits for the individual including:
We must ensure never to take our volunteers for granted and should actively seek to develop a culture in our churches and ministries that values and protects those who seek to serve generously and humbly. Let us explore then ways that we can protect those who serve us.
Workers Health and Safety Laws
In 2012 a number of States and Territories set about harmonising their Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) laws to provide a consistent set of Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) laws that would not only protect employees, but also captured volunteers. The legislation recognised that everyone has a right to be safe at work, including volunteers.
It recognised that volunteers played a vital role in communities throughout Australia and made significant contributions through the provision of unpaid work for a wide variety of organisations every day.
Presently, all States and Territories (except Victoria) adhere to these harmonised WHS laws. Irrespective of which State or Territory you may operate in, it is important to understand the rights and obligations afforded to volunteers under the WHS laws.
Organisations who employ paid staff must, as far as reasonably practicable, seek to protect the physical and mental safety of all its workers, including volunteers. This means that the volunteer who greets everyone at the door on Sunday is owed the same duty of care as the paid pastoral team member.
It should be noted that while organisations who are made up entirely of volunteers and do not employ any paid workers are not subject to these WHS laws, however it is fair to say you still have a moral duty to extend the same level of care to your volunteers. No organisation wants to suffer crippling reputational damage because they have failed to provide a safe environment for the very people who help their organisation run.
There are many helpful resources available to explain how organisations should address their WHS obligations toward volunteers.
Following is a link to the Safe Work Australia website and their Essential Guide to Work Health and Safety for Volunteers.
How to protect your volunteers
It is essential that as an organisation you ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, that you are protecting the safety of your staff and volunteers.
This term is used to qualify or limit some work health and safety duties. With work health and safety, if something is reasonably practicable it means it is, or was at a particular time, reasonably able to be done. Taking into account:
- Reference Safe Work Australia
Ways that you can meet this obligation may be through:
2. The provision of appropriate personal protective equipment
3. First aid facilities provided or training in the administration of first aid
4. Info on emergency procedures and how to report hazards and incidents
5. Ensure the volunteer is suitable for the role and capable of carrying it out
Many churches and ministries are desperate for volunteers to put their hand up to help with the numerous tasks required to keep their organisation ticking.
It would be difficult then to refuse someone who keenly desires to get involved in your ministry.
However, we must be careful not to allow enthusiasm to cloud our assessment of whether the person seeking to volunteer is appropriate for, or capable of carrying out the required role.
Having sound application and screening processes in place protects not only your organisation but the volunteer too.
The process may seem awkward or unnecessary to some, especially if the person volunteering has been a member of your church or ministry for a number of years, but this is a risk management exercise, and a process that will stand you in good stead in the event that something should go wrong.
Written or verbal references are fine, providing the information is appropriately recorded and documented with their application.
Your volunteers are only going to be effective in your ministry if you have provided them with the correct instruction and training.
Volunteers should first be acquainted with your organisations Code of Conduct. This will set the standard from the very beginning on how they are expected to represent your organisation. Being briefed on the Code of Conduct will also allow you to appropriately manage or discipline people if standards are not being met.
Other areas that volunteers may require instruction or training include:
Specific tasks may require more detailed instruction or supervision to ensure the safety of your volunteers.
Risk Management Example - Church Working Bees
All of the above points also apply to external community working bee events, however work should be limited to basic maintenance works (i.e. gardening, painting etc). Any tasks requiring construction should be supervised and signed off by appropriately qualified tradesperson to verify the suitability of the job.
Volunteer or Employee?
In many churches or ministries, it is not uncommon for people to be engaged in positions where part of their role is paid work, but other aspects are undertaken in a voluntary capacity.
Consider the following example – Ethan is employed by the church two days a week as an assistant to the Youth Pastor. For an additional two days per week, Ethan volunteers as a cleaner and gardener for the church property.
It is important that workers are classified correctly. Employees must be paid according to Fair Work/legislative requirements, enjoy the safety and standards outlined by WHS obligations and be provided with opportunity to have grievances mediated by industrial tribunals.
In contrast, a volunteer does not have any legal entitlement to remuneration, has fewer workplace protections and can be dismissed without notice. If you do not have clear volunteer/employment contracts in place to identify the respective roles, it could give rise to litigation, orders for back pay and penalties.
Voluntary duties are often defined where:
Resources to help you establish if you are engaging a volunteer or an employee can be found at:
How to: Assess whether a volunteer is actually an employee:
Unfortunately, despite our best intentions, accidents happen, volunteers may be injured as a result or in some instances the actions of our volunteers may cause injury or loss to someone else.
There are insurance products available which may help to protect not only your volunteer but also your organisation. Following are some examples and some scenarios to consider.
A Volunteer Workers Personal Accident policy will be able to provide some cover for people volunteering for your organisation.
These types of policies will generally respond where a volunteer has been injured quite by accident, and not as a result of any negligence on your part.
A Volunteer Workers Personal Accident can often provide the following protection:
Whilst volunteering at church, a young man accidently dropped a crate of sound gear onto his foot. He needed to be fitted with a “moon boot” during his recovery and was unable to attend work for several weeks whilst the injury healed. Loss of income and out of pocket expenses such as pain relief medication were able to be covered under the church’s Volunteer Workers Personal Accident policy.
There is always the possibility that a volunteer has been injured because of the negligence of your organisation.
This could be due to poor instruction or supervision, a failure to supply proper protective equipment, or requiring a volunteer to carry out tasks that are inherently dangerous and that breach standard OHS requirements.
In these instances, it is very possible that an injured person may look to sue your organisation for their loss or injury.
Claims of this nature can be incredibly costly and would take into consideration:
These types of claims can be incredibly expensive and can take a long time to settle. To pay or defend a claim of this nature, your organisation would need Public Liability Insurance in place.
A volunteer who was engaged to help with the management and setup of the stage for church was asked to go backstage to find a piece of equipment for one of the musicians. The item was not where it should have been.
The area behind the stage was dark and there was no accessible light switch. Entering a room off one of the backstage hallways in search of the equipment, the volunteer fell into an empty baptism pool which was sunk into the floor and had been left uncovered.
The volunteer sustained significant injury requiring surgery. The injury was such that the volunteers future job prospects in their chosen career were negatively impacted.
In many church and ministry settings, lay preachers, life group leaders or pastoral care roles are filled by volunteers. In these roles they will be preaching, teaching, providing pastoral advice or directed prayer ministry. All these activities are seen to be the “profession” of the church.
Sometimes claims can be made against churches or ministries by an individual who may feel that the content of a sermon or life group study is discriminatory or defamatory toward them or perhaps advice given in a pastoral care or prayer ministry setting is damaging.
Often, the costliest aspect of these types of claims are investigative expenses and legal costs to defend cases.
To protect your organisation and your volunteers in these instances you would require Professional Indemnity Insurance.
In some cases, if it is deemed that the volunteer has been injured due to a breach of OHS or WHS guidelines, there is a possibility that your organisations board of directors or elders may be sued for breaching their responsibility to manage a safe workplace.
To defend or protect your directors, your organisation would require a Management Liability or Associations Liability Insurance policy in place which covers OH&S Defence Costs.
It is also often the case that the directors or board members of your church or ministry may filling these positions voluntarily as well, and therefore should be appropriately protected.
Considering that so many aspects of our ministries rely on the selfless dedication of volunteers, many programs would simply grind to a halt, if not for these essential members of our teams. We should never take our volunteers for granted.
To that end, it is essential that we do our part to look after our volunteers through sound policies, planning and protection which actively show just how valued they are.