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If your organization hires both paid and volunteers for their projects, you must follow these tips for better HR and Volunteers safety management. This will help you in the risk management activities related to your staff.
1. Keep written records of job descriptions
The first and most important step in risk management is that, you should know the caliber of your paid personnel and volunteers. You must have a complete record of your workers according to their capabilities and their role in the organization. Make it sure that you have a complete job description for your paid personnel in written form. This job description must contain the information and regular status of your employee.
Volunteers duties and role should be defined according to agreement. A volunteer cant claim any reward according to common agreements. If your employee wants to be a volunteer then this agreement has a great importance, because it creates a real distinction between its employment and volunteer services. According to agreement the person's volunteer services will be totally separate from his/ her employment services. Your employee will give you a complete assurance that his/her volunteer services will not affect his/ her employment. Online certificate in risk management, gives comprehensive information for managing risks related to staff.
2. Document the policies and procedures
When documenting the policies for employees and volunteers, dont write the policies in a single handbook or manual. Some organizations document such policies in a single manual which is unsafe and unprofessional. An employee handbook should be prepared and assigned to employees only. A separate handbook of volunteers will contain volunteers policies and will be distributed to volunteers only. While developing policies keep in mind that there should be minimum overlap of both policies, especially policies related to safety. For those volunteers who are paid employees too, must be enlisted in both handbooks and they should be supervised according to their relevant services.
3. Keep record of the working hours
Keep a complete record of working hours of your paid employees and their working hours as volunteer. Never ignore this because an employee who is working as a volunteer too after its regular working time can claim for the working hours as volunteer. So its employer responsibility to take a complete record of such workers. Always keep in mind that your compensation practices are according to Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA). So never compensate your non-exempt workers against the rules and regulations of FLSA. Sometimes exempt workers work beyond their working hour but these working hours are not considered as non-exempt working hour for your organization, but these working hours are considered as overtime for your worker. So be clear about the exempt working hours and non-exempt working hours of your employees. If some of your workers are seeking to work as volunteer in extra time, induct them through a proper channel, designed for volunteer enrolment.
4. Don't force employees to volunteer
Never force your paid workers or employees to work as volunteer for your organization. Never pressurize any individual to pay its services and time for your organization. Educate your super visors to make a clear difference between volunteer and employee. Educate them with the basic rule for employees, because forcing an employee to work for you without any compensation is against the rules. This can be damageable for your workers and organization too.
5. Rewarding volunteers
Most of the organizations financially assist their volunteers in the form of rewards, discounts on services and wage for their pocket expenditures. Legitimate volunteers are the volunteer who are rewarded in terms of settlement of their expenses, some non-financial benefits, and little fees for services. Two issues are mainly involved in rewarding a volunteer; first issue arises about taxation and second issue involves the status of volunteers, because payments put their volunteer status at risk. So in risk management always keep these issues in your mind while you are paying a volunteer.
