The document summarizes key aspects of risk management as they relate to volunteer programs, including defining risk management, common elements of risk management plans, and discussing various laws and policies around safety, discrimination, privacy, and accommodating individuals with disabilities. Real-world examples are requested from attendees to illustrate these concepts in practice. Attendees are encouraged to develop job descriptions, handbooks, screening processes and orientations to set clear expectations and mitigate risks for their organizations.
1. Risk Management and Volunteerism AZ Summit on Volunteerism and Service Learning
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Editor's Notes
Many of you may feel that risk management involves safety. While that is true and we’re going to discuss this first, it involves all these other areas too. Why are we discussing these areas. Because if these areas are not addressed by policy or procedure in your organization you leave your organization open to risk, and not just from safety factors. We live in a litigious society and being a non-profit, or a community organization is not in itself protection anymore. Saying, “I didn’t know,” has never been a proper excuse.
It should be mentioned that anything we say here today is not legal advice. Our focus here is due diligence. We do what we can do. If this is a situation we cannot solve today, we will look into it for you and get back to you.
This is an official definition of risk management from the Web. It’s a good starting point for what we will discuss today. In terms of this discussion let’s establish that volunteer is not a job description. It is a pay grade only. This is very important to realize because many of the things we will be discussing will sound very familiar to the profession of human resources. They are. And human resources relates to volunteers as well. Never heard that before. That’s because volunteers were thought of as phone answerers and envelope stuffers. We’re here to expand that definition. And with that expansion comes responsibility to both your volunteers, your agencies, your constituents, and your donors.
Having written policy and procedures is the first step for you doing your “due diligence” This may seem like a lot of work, but actually it makes your life much easier. It gives you a standard by which to operate by. The thing you must always remember is that all policies and procedures must be work related. You’ll hear this a lot as we go along today, especially when we discuss real world examples. For instance if you have a volunteer answering phones for you, do you have a dress code you would like the receptionist/operator to comply with? If so, why? Do you get a lot of walk-ins? Would they be receiving high end donors that may object a certain way of dress? Or do you, or the ED just prefer someone in a dress? If it’s the last one, sorry, that’s not a work related issue and the dress code could be more lenient.
Almost all agencies have some sort of insurance. If yours does not, you better find out why. There are different types of insurance. There is liability insurance, property insurance, a lot of agencies carry insurance for their Board of Directors. None of this is a secret and you should know about it, especially if you work with volunteers. If you don’t know about insurance, if you find it complicated have it explained to you. Liability insurance covers you in the case of a lawsuit that may be brought against the agency by a third party. For example: a volunteer discloses confidential information. The volunteer is immune from prosecution if it was done without malicious intent. This is the responsibility of the agency to train volunteers properly. If you did all this, you can still be sued, but this shows you have done your due diligence.
While that is certainly true, the profession of volunteer management has got to come out of the dark ages. We have to establish ourselves as a professional profession. For many years HR executives were not part of the strategic planning team of an organization. However, something we can learn from them. They have established themselves as a profession and now it’s our turn to do the same. Have a handout about the marriage of HR with Volunteer Mgt. This requires a lot of work by the Volunteer Manager, but with the right tools, we can help make the job easier.
Can you answer any of these questions. Do you know what the Material Safety Data Sheet is? Have you reviewed this information with your volunteers. Do you have a volunteer orientation that explains the expectations that the agency has for its volunteers? For example: Each agency will have to look at the specifics of the work they do. Do you work with walk-ins, or is most of your work research for example. If you work with confidential information you will have to develop specific procedures for your work
When I worked at Habitat for Humanity Tucson we had a death at an event. Here was our due diligence. Liability waiver, doctor, water, shifts available,
Let’s discuss recruitment: can I put in my job description only men need apply? What is the job related reason for doing this? Does this violate Title VII? This does not mean you can’t put in specific issues with the job, such as lifting a certain amount of weight, but it better be job related.
This is a very touchy subject and because of that there is a lot of confusion about what exactly is sexual harassment. Here’s my real world example. I was leaving work and was going to meet friends so I changed out of my work clothes and into shorts before I left. As I walked out one of my co-workers and my supervisor saw me and I stopped. My co-worker said he liked my shorts and they looked good on me. I said “thank you.” My supervisor says, “you have nice legs.” My colleague says isn’t that sexual harassment and I said it could be. My supervisor thought he was being complementary. I said, no, my co-worker was complementary because he said he liked the shorts. You were commenting on my body. Do I have a case? No, because a couple of things need to be present. One incident is not a trend. I need to express my feeling uncomfortable with his comment, and then it has to continue.
If no one pipes up I will tell Jenny’s story. Why is this important? Because if you allow discrimination or harassment of your volunteers you are open to lawsuits. Just because they are not employees does not mean that cannot be discriminated against. I know this seems like big stuff, well, because it is. If you have a policy and procedure handbook, this is the place where it comes in handy.
I did not get this off of a legal web site, but I thought the information was clear in the language so I used it. You’ll notice this is not specifically about sexual harassment. Although that could be part of a hostile work environment, this definition includes more. Please note, that it is not necessarily overt. Screaming is not necessary, but it is a situation that causes extreme stress. You can insert volunteer where ever it says employee.
Talk about Diane and the he/she controversy? Example: co-worker writes a letter to a co-worker about unwanted attention. But it’s not true, how do we handle this? Mediation, ask questions, get help from other volunteers, board members who have specific skills. 99.9% of the time don’t take this personally, its about how others are perceiving the harassing situation.
You’ll notice I highlighted the part about making a striking a reasonable balance. Here is reasonable. You have a volunteer who uses a wheelchair and you have steps up to the building and you have a $500K a year budget. Not a lot to work with. But the backdoor is wheelchair accessible, however, stuff needs to be cleared away to allow the chair to enter smoothly. A reasonable accommodation would be to make the back door accessible to him. Or if you have a volunteer or a donor who could make you a ramp. These are reasonable. One point about drug/alcohol policies. If someone is in the process of being treated for an addiction, they are covered by ADA.
Lady in a wheelchair who wanted to volunteer at habitat for humanity.
Handouts available. Example: volunteer at a hospice or a mental health organization. Volunteer manager needs to train the volunteer about how to deal with the confidential information. HIPAA applies to everyone, and can open up a lawsuit if this is violated. Training, training, training is very important.
Don’t let legal jargon complicate the matter so you don’t want to learn more about this. We have tried to present you with summary and reviews of the law to expose you to the issues.
Clearly, all of these things would be tailored to your agencies specific mission and issues.
We have handouts about how to design a Job Description. Use the bold areas to fill in according to your agency. This sets the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not. A job description keeps things clear. And clearly, they can always be updated as the need arises. Listen to the volunteer who wants to edit their job description.
For instance the last two places I have worked, some employees liked to bring in their dogs and cats sometimes to the office. I have added a pet policy to our handbook.
This is a good place to review the job description, review what is required by the department they would be working in. Again, this is the opportunity to manage the expectations of the volunteer and the requirements of the job to the agency. I know some of this sounds like a lot of work, but this will ensure that the right person gets into a position and hopefully they will stay in the position longer and be more productive for the team. Which means less work for you, the volunteer manager, in always finding people.
This can be a group activity or individual. Do you have a job application procedure
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