Implementing policies and procedures

Once you have developed your policies and procedures, it's important to make sure they are used in your
organisation, and not just put into a file, never to be looked at again!

As part of your process, make sure you consider how you will communicate the policies and procedures to
staff and volunteers, and ensure they are being used and followed.

Write down how you plan to do this. For example, you could:

Develop a training program that all staff and volunteers have to undertake
At the end of any training or information session, ask participants to complete a short quiz to show
they have understood the information
Incorporate a segment about the policies and procedures, and where to access them, into your
induction and orientation programs, or into your volunteer handbook if you have one
Create posters or process charts to post around the workplace to keep key messages firmly in mind
Regularly promote a policy or procedure in internal newsletters or at team meetings.

It's important that staff and volunteers new and existing understand the purpose of your policies and
procedures, which is to create a safe and welcoming environment for everyone.

Developing policies and procedures

There is no rule for the type or number of volunteer policies and procedures you need in your organisation.
And you certainly don't want to generate paperwork or processes just for the sake of it.

Your organisation might have one overarching general volunteer policy, or a number of separate policies for
different aspects of your volunteering program. Either way, they need to reflect the particular values of your
organisation and outline how you involve and support your volunteers. You may also have specific aspects of
your own volunteering program that you want to cover in a policy.

You should start by making sure you have established Volunteering principles and a Code of practice.

What's the process?

Its important to include other people in the process of developing and implementing polices and procedures,
to make sure the documents are useful and used!

The key is to involve people affected by the policy volunteers, stakeholders, management in the process
and to consider their viewpoints as you develop, implement and review your policies and supporting
procedures.

Organise some brainstorming sessions or form a small working group of people from across your organisation.

Its a good idea to include at least one volunteer and one volunteer manager or supervisor in this group.

In general, most organisations follow this process:

Work out what policies you need What do similar organisations have? What's unique to your
organisation? What are the priorities? Consult with people from across your organisation to get their
ideas and comments
Draft, refine and write your policies

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 Have your policies approved and endorsed (by the Board, Committee of Management, CEO
depending on what is appropriate)
Promote your policies in the workplace, get people using the procedures and encourage feedback or
improvements
Review and refine your policies regularly.

Writing your policies

It's up to you as to how formal or informal your policies are. Larger organisations often have human resources
staff who manage policy development, but smaller organisations may not want (or need) policies and
documentation to mirror the business world. Just make sure your policies suit your organisations values and
volunteering principles.

Most policies will typically contain:

Administrative information policy name, version, creation and review dates, who authorised it
An introductory statement about why the policy exists
A purpose statement about what the policy wants to achieve within the organisation
A section that outlines the details of the policy who is responsible for actioning or implementing the
policy, when it needs to be done by and which documents or forms are needed
The procedure which explains how people go about actioning the policy.

It's good to have a standard template so that all your policies look the same and are easily identified. As a
general rule, policies should be no longer than one page.

Once you've seen a few examples of policies you can decide how you'd like to structure your own.

Disputes, grievances and complaints

A grievance policy states how your organisation will approach volunteer grievances, concerns or complaints. It
also outlines the approach taken to complaints or grievances about a volunteer or their actions.

This links to National Standards for Involving Volunteers No.4 Work and the workplace.

Your policy is a guide to how to deal with any kind of complaint or dispute resolution. It should include:

What to do when an employee and/or a volunteer have a dispute between them

What an employee and/or volunteer can do if they have a complaint
An outline of the complaint procedure
Who is covered by the policy
The roles and responsibilities of those people involved and their supervisors/managers
How to make an appeal
What happens when a grievance or complaint is made
Timelines
Who else can help.

You might find it is helpful to present the information as a flow chart.

What needs to go in it?

If you are writing a disputes and grievances policy, provide clear step-by-step instructions on who the
complainant needs to speak to. Normally this is the manager of the department.

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The manager should arrange to meet the volunteer to talk about the issue and try to resolve the issue
internally. It is important to have another manager or director available as an alternative contact person in
case the complainant has a problem with the manager and doesnt feel comfortable approaching him or her. It
is a good idea to create the disputes and grievance policy as a flow chart.

If a solution isnt found after the first meeting between the complainant and manager and neither party is t
satisfied with the outcome, the next step would be for the managers supervisor to be involved in discussions.

It is best for disputes and grievances to be solved internally. However, if after approaching all levels of
management, the dispute cannot be resolved, a third party can be brought into discussions. This third party
could be the local volunteer resource centre. Volunteers can also call the Dispute Settlement Centre of
Victoria, which offers free mediation services to all Victorians.

It is important for all discussions to be friendly and open, and for the volunteer to be encouraged to be direct.
Make sure the meeting takes place where it is convenient for both parties and the volunteer feels comfortable
somewhere his or her privacy isnt jeopardised.

What now?

Make the document public. Dont be afraid of receiving complaints or disputes. It is better to solve the
problem in the beginning than let it escalate. When your disputes and grievances policy is finalised, make the
document public and upload it to your website. It is no good having a dispute and grievances policy if no one
knows it exists. Make sure your volunteers understand the disputes and grievances policy and whom to go to
for assistance. For new volunteers, it can be incorporated into the induction.

Read our section on Disputes and grievances for more information.

What's the difference between policies and procedures?

Policies and procedures go hand-in-hand to clarify what your organisation wants to do and how to do it.

Policies

Policies are clear, simple statements of how your organisation intends to conduct its services, actions or
business. They provide a set of guiding principles to help with decision making.

Policies don't need to be long or complicated a couple of sentences may be all you need for each policy area.

Procedures

Procedures describe how each policy will be put into action in your organisation. Each procedure should
outline:

Who will do what

What steps they need to take
Which forms or documents to use.

Procedures might just be a few bullet points or instructions. Sometimes they work well as forms, checklists,
instructions or flowcharts.

Policies and their accompanying procedures will vary between workplaces because they reflect the values,
approaches and commitments of a specific organisation and its culture. But they share the same role in guiding
your organisation.

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Privacy and confidentiality

A privacy policy is a general statement about how personal information flows through an organisation. It
should cover:

Collecting information the sort of personal information you gather and why
Using and disclosing information when and how personal information is accessed
Who can access personal information
Record keeping processes and security.

Your organisation might find it makes sense to have a separate records management policy or a confidentially
agreement that volunteers must sign before they have access to information. Depending on their role, you
might need to consider having a copyright or intellectual property policy as well.

Records management

Your organisation will also need to ensure that any personal information is collected, kept and used in a way
that meets the requirements of privacy legislation. This means that only information that is necessary should
be collected and that it needs to be kept securely.

To ensure that you are keeping your records properly, you will need to establish:

What information is required

Who is responsible for collecting the information
What procedure will be used collect the information
Where it is kept
How long it is kept for
How you dispose of records.

This links to National Standards for Involving Volunteers No.2 Management responsibilities.

Confidentiality agreement

A volunteer confidentially agreement is a document that a volunteer signs to declare that they will follow the
privacy policy and related procedures in an appropriate manner. This relates to the collection, storage, access
and disposal of records.

It is useful to have a confidentially agreement if your organisation has volunteers accessing personal
information or confidential documents, or if they handle client information.

This links to National Standards for Involving Volunteers No.3 Recruitment.

Encouraging diversity

Offering flexible volunteering programs that appeal to people from a wide range of backgrounds benefits both
volunteers and volunteering organisations. This includes people from different cultural, language, age, gender
and interest groups. Volunteers are more likely to invest their time and energy in programs where they feel
welcomed and included. In turn, organisations that build flexibility and diversity into their programs open
themselves to a much wider pool of prospective volunteers.

This section looks at the importance of diversity and suggests ways to reduce barriers to volunteering, and
encourage different kinds of people to get involved. It also includes ideas and tips for working with specific
groups of volunteers.

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Select a topic to find out more

Why is diversity important?

Ways to encourage diversity
Recruiting volunteers from diverse backgrounds
Working with corporate volunteers
Working with people from culturally diverse backgrounds
Working with people who are blind or have low vision
Working with people who are Deaf or hard of hearing
Working with people who have a disability
Working with skilled volunteers
Working with young people

Why is diversity important?

There are many people in the community who would like to volunteer but who find it hard because of their
diverse background. This might be because they have a disability, or because of their cultural and linguistic
background, age, gender or sexuality.

Volunteers from diverse backgrounds are just like any other volunteers they want to give their time and
energy to improve the community. They can contribute to your organisation in many ways based on their
unique personal experiences.

Many volunteer organisations feel that recruiting people from diverse backgrounds has made a very positive
influence to their organisation. By putting in a little effort, their workplace has become more representative of
their clientele or the community they're in.

There are other benefits to encouraging volunteers from diverse backgrounds to join your organisation, such
as:

Tapping in to a wider pool of potential volunteers from the community

Having access to people who bring different sets of personal and professional qualities, skills and
perspectives
Increasing your organisation's credibility, reputation and engagement in the community
Promoting mutual respect, tolerance and understanding, and actively working against ignorance in
the community
Complying with legal and moral obligations to be inclusive.

Legal obligations

The Equal Opportunity Act 2010 came into force in August 2011 to improve the way discrimination and sexual
harassment is managed in Victoria.

It is still against the law under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 to discriminate against a person because of any
of the personal characteristics listed as a type of discrimination, including (but not limited to) age, disability,
marital or parental status, race, religion or sexual orientation.

Sexual harassment is also against the law.

Visit the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission website for more information on types of
discrimination.

Supporting and supervising

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Providing the right level of support and supervision for volunteers can feel like a bit of a juggle. You don't want
volunteers to feel like they are constantly being watched. But you also don't want them to feel like they are
left to their own devices without support. A volunteer coordinator must provide the appropriate balance of
support and supervision, manage expectations and match volunteers to roles.

There are many creative ways to provide the right balance of support and supervision for volunteers while
keeping them motivated and engaged.

Select a topic to find out more

Volunteer payments and expenses

Ways to support volunteers
Approaches to supervising
Keeping volunteers motivated
Disputes and grievances

Attracting and recruiting

Recruiting and selecting volunteers involves more than just advertising for volunteers and processing their
applications. To attract volunteers who fit in well with your organisation and contribute to your programs you
need to know what sort of volunteer roles you need and, importantly, the kind of people that you would like
to have in those roles. You also need to make sure that your organisation's culture, programs and processes
are set up to attract these kinds of volunteers, and keep them for the longer term.

This section looks at some of the key issues and tasks involved in getting ready to recruit volunteers, running a
recruitment campaign and selecting prospective volunteers.

Select a topic to find out more

The recruitment process

Where are the volunteers?
Writing volunteer advertisements
Enquiries and applications
Selection and interviews
Screening and checks

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Screening and checks

Most volunteering organisations have a screening and checking process as a final step in recruiting volunteers.
Volunteer checks are a good way to minimise risk to your organisation and to protect volunteers and the
people they will be working with.

At its simplest level, screening and checking involves asking prospective volunteers for identification (like a
driver's licence or passport), a reference letter or contact details of referees that you can follow up.

If your volunteer roles involve working with vulnerable people children, seniors or people with a disability
or tasks where volunteers may have access to bank accounts, prospective volunteers may also need to
undergo further screening such as a Working with Children Check or a police record check.

Handling personal information

Handling and storing personal information is an important privacy issue and reflects the professionalism and
responsibility of any community organisation. Some not-for-profit organisations are required to comply with
the National Privacy Principles of the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988.

Even if your organisation is not required to comply, it is good management practice to follow the relevant
privacy principles.

Identity and reference checks

It is recommended to require proof of identification and some reference checking as part of your volunteer
screening process. This protects everyone involved with your organisation.

Identification checks

Asking a prospective volunteer for identification is a simple way to verify that they are who they say they are.
Some volunteer organisations use the 100 point identification check to confirm your identity. This is the same
check required for opening a bank account in Australia.

Prospective volunteers will also need to provide 100 points of identification if applying for a police record
check or Working with Children Check.

In some cases, a prospective volunteer may not have 100 points of identification. If this happens, try and be
flexible and discuss with them other ways that you could check their identity.

References and referees

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You may also wish to check references or follow up with a referee as part of your organisation's volunteer
checks.

It is important to reassure prospective volunteers that your organisation's checking processes are about
protecting everyone involved and are not about judging a person's credentials or fitness for the role.

Some prospective volunteers will not have recent employment references or referees. In these cases ask for
other kinds of references from people like teachers, religious ministers or someone in the community who
knows them.

For more information see our Identity and reference checks page for volunteers.

Working with Children Checks

In Victoria, the Working with Children Check is a mandatory minimum checking standard to protect children
under 18 from people who may put them at risk. This includes both volunteers and employees.

Volunteers do not need to pay for a Working with Children Check but they do need to apply for one
themselves (you cannot do it on their behalf). See the Working with Children Checks page for volunteers for
more information.

Once a prospective volunteer has their Working with Children Check you need to sight it and verify that they
have passed their check. Find a list of all your obligations as an organisation on the Organisations obligations
page of the Working with Children Check website.

Police record checks

Not everyone has to undergo a police check but your organisation may consider asking prospective volunteers
to undergo a police check if they undertake certain roles that involve:

Working with vulnerable people, such as children, seniors or people with a disability
Financial duties, especially those involving access to bank accounts
Driving duties.

Some volunteer organisations must get a police check for all their volunteers as part of their funding
arrangements with government departments.

A volunteer must apply for their own National Police Certificate except in cases where your volunteer
organisation qualifies for the CrimCheck service.

The National Police Certificate is issued to the applicant, not to your organisation. Volunteers will need to bring
you their certificate for sighting and you can make a copy for your records with the volunteer's consent.

Volunteer organisations can apply to Victoria Police for a Community Volunteer Fee (CVF) number.

To apply for a police check volunteers need to complete a 'Consent to Check and Release National Police
Record' form. You can download this form from the Victoria Police National Police Record Check.

For more information see the Police record checks page for volunteers

Inducting and training

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Induction and training programs are essential to ensuring that volunteers know how to perform their roles and
what is expected of them as volunteers. However, induction and training is also an important way to involve
volunteers in your organisation and is often seen as a key benefit and incentive by prospective volunteers.

This section looks at the induction process and offers tips for running successful induction and orientation
programs. It also outlines an approach to training volunteers and some of the different training options
available to volunteers and volunteer organisations.

Select a topic to find out more:

The induction process

Induction and orientation programs
Training volunteers
Options for training volunteers

Enquiries and applications

While everyone wants something different from their volunteering experience, most people are looking for an
organisation that they can connect with through the volunteer work that they do. A prospective volunteer's
first real experience of your organisation will be when they make an enquiry or apply for a volunteering
position.

Why have an application process?

Thinking about the volunteer experience from the very first time a potential volunteer makes contact with
your organisation helps to ensure that they get a positive experience right from the start. Having a simple, yet
well-planned, enquiry and application process speaks volumes about your organisation. And having people in
your organisation who are briefed and equipped to welcome, support and inform prospective volunteers
shows that you are organised and that you actually care about how your volunteers are treated.

The good news is that it doesn't take much time or effort to set up a welcoming and effective enquiry and
application process.

Your process doesn't have to be complicated, but having something set down ensures that everyone involved
knows whats going on and what needs to be done.

When you brief staff or volunteers you should:

Provide them with a copy of your recruitment timeline

Provide them with copies of relevant documents (position descriptions, fact sheets, frequently asked
questions, contact registers)
Explain their role in the recruitment process and what is expected of them
Provide the contact details of someone they can escalate enquiries to if needed.

How will you handle enquiries?

Think about the best way for prospective volunteers to contact your organisation:

Do you have someone who can handle enquiries all the time? When are they available? Will the job
need to be shared? How best can you manage the work?
What is the best way to take enquiries in your organisation, by phone, email, or face-to-face? This will
depend on how your organisation is set up and who is available. Smaller organisations are usually
better suited to take enquiries by phone or email only.

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 What is a realistic turnaround timeframe for responding to enquiries? There's no use aiming for
immediate turnaround if you are only available once a week to check and respond to messages. Once
you set a turnaround time make it a policy to stick to it. You can also manage prospective volunteers'
expectations by letting them know when they can expect a response.
What are the typical kinds of enquiries that you will receive? Knowing this means that you don't need
to make up answers on the spot. You can brief people or prepare a fact sheet, flier or answers to
frequently asked questions that tell prospective volunteers everything that they need to know.

How will volunteers apply?

Not every organisation has the same application process. Giving some thought to what works for your
organisation will streamline the application process for you and your volunteers. Think about:

How do prospective volunteers apply for a role? Do they just call or email and register their interest?
Is there an application form? Can they apply at any time or only at specific times?
Is there an application closing date? Will this date allow you time to review applications and conduct
other things like information sessions, interviews, screening and checks?
Do you need to create a paper-based application or registration of interest form? Can you make an
online form?
What details do you want to collect from prospective volunteers? How will you record these details?
Do prospective volunteers need to meet any mandatory criteria as part of their application, like a
driver's licence, food handling certificate, Working with Children Check?
How do applicants submit their applications? By phone? Online? By mail? In person?
How will you keep a record of who's applied?
How will you acknowledge applications received? By email? By phone? By mail?
What happens after you receive applications? Is there an interview or information session? How are
volunteers selected?

Use your answers to these questions to design your enquiry and application process. Write down the process
(and any procedures and documentation to support the process) in a short document. Make sure everyone
involved with enquiries and applications has a copy of your process and understands what is expected.

Application forms

Create any documents you need to support the enquiry or application process well before you start advertising
for volunteers.

Volunteer applications forms, or registration of interest forms, are a particularly useful way for organisations
to gather essential information from prospective volunteers as part of the application process.

Application forms don't have to be very complicated or complex to be effective. But they are a really useful
way to find out about an applicant so you can judge how they would fit into a role or your organisation. This
information can feed into program evaluations and re-designs, or your marketing strategy and campaigns.

Be sure to only collect information that is relevant to the application process or useful to your organsiation.
Remember that applying for a volunteer role is not the same as applying for a job and not all the information
required for a job application is relevant in a volunteering context.

Information typically found in a volunteer application form includes:

Name and contact details

How did you hear about us? (Useful for evaluating your promotion and marketing activities)
Age
Gender

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 Work status (full time, part time, student, retired etc)
Why do you want to volunteer? (work experience, meet people, learn new skills, to lend a hand)
Whats your availability (days of the week, times of the day)
What type of volunteering are you interested in (ongoing, every now and then, events or campaigns)
Have you volunteered before? Where did you volunteer? What sort of volunteering did you do?
Do you have any specific skills?
Do you have any specific interests?

Also include questions that address any specific requirements you may need that are relevant to your
organisation and the volunteer program, such as having a certain level of proficiency in English or languages
other than English, a driver's licence, or contact details for referees.

If you are asking for referees also ask for an applicant's permission to contact them. You can include this in the
application form as a simple checkbox that's labelled with: 'I give my consent to obtain personal information
from my referees'.

You may also wish to include a simple privacy statement at the end of your application form which informs
applicants that your organisation is committed to protecting the privacy of any personal information that you
collect. Most not-for-profit organisations are required to comply with the National Privacy Principles of the
Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988.

Establishing codes and principles

Before you consider using volunteers in your organisations activities, it's important (and extremely useful) to
have some guiding principles and standards that outline how your organisation will involve and support its
volunteers.

These high-level documents provide a foundation for the development of all your volunteer-involving
programs and activities. They will also be the basis of your volunteer-related policies and procedures.

Developing these documents doesn't have to be a difficult or time consuming task. The idea is to have some
clear and simple statements that provide a framework for more detailed planning activities.

Select a topic to find out more

Volunteering principles
Volunteering code of practice
Statement of volunteer rights and responsibilities
Volunteer agreement

Continuous improvement

Once you have your volunteer program up and running it is a good idea to develop and implement a
continuous improvement process.

Continuous improvement is an ongoing cycle of review and evaluation of your processes and procedures in
your organisation. Having a continuous improvement policy helps you to refine the way you do things to make
it as effective and efficient as possible.

Having an improvement process means that all volunteers (and staff) can contribute to the improvement of
the way you work.

This relates to National Standard # 8 Continuous improvement.

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Getting started

Probably the most important things to remember when you start thinking about implementing a continuous
improvement process are:

It is cyclical
It is measurable
It is incremental
Everyone is involved.

Its basically about collecting information about day to day operations, and having an ongoing process for
improving how things are done. This can be applied to all aspects of your work activity, from small initiatives to
agency-wide processes.

The aim is to make all organisational functions and resources work better and more efficiently over
time. Having a continuous improvement process can also help to:

Encourage participation from staff and volunteers

Improve communication between volunteers, staff and management
Reinforce your commitment to creating a positive work environment
Provide an objective basis for decision making
Create a proactive and planned approach to improving how things are done.

Collecting feedback

The first step is having processes in place to regularly capture feedback and information about how your
program is working. You could do this by:

Having regular surveys

Organising focus groups or more formal feedback sessions
Collating any feedback sent through your complaints or compliments systems or if you dont have
these systems think about making a form available through your website or intranet
Completing a volunteer exit interview when a volunteer leaves, or a feedback session when their
probation period comes to an end
Making it a part of your performance management process
Holding a consultation phase and speaking to people in your organisation and key clients
Conducting regular internal audits
Having an external agency conduct a full service audit for you.

Identifying improvements

When you have collected the information you need, think about how you can both correct and prevent issues
that have been identified. Sometimes it will be something simple like fixing a step in a process map or
assigning responsibility for a task; but sometimes you might have to think more broadly about your resource
availability or business requirements.

Continuous improvement is about improving the processes and procedures in the workplace. And the best way
to work out what isnt working well is to ask the people doing the job! Having good communication with your
volunteers will help the process enormously, as will acting on the feedback that you receive.

Planning

The first step of being able to act on your feedback is deciding who is responsible for planning, managing and
coordinating improvement activities. You should also have some guidelines around:

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 How to work out the impact of change
How you will communicate the change
The time periods for implementing change
How you will evaluate the change.

Its also important to keep all the information the you collect and document changes that you make, the
rationale behind them and the expected outcome of the change. Then when you do your next review you can
easily measure how effective the change really was.

Making changes

One approach that larger organisations might like to take is to implement changes on a smaller scale first so
for example, make the change in one team and see how it goes, before spreading it across your whole
organisation.

This follows a basic Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) process. This is a cycle which tests change in the real work
setting by planning it, trying it, looking at the results, and acting on what is learned.

Remember that all improvement requires making changes, but not all changes result in improvement! That is
why it is a continuous process.

The importance of communication

As with all your policies and procedures, its important to communicate with your volunteers. This is
particularly important with continuous improvement. Some volunteers might not like all the change, or might
think its because they are not doing a good job especially if you have people volunteering part time or for
projects, where they might not get to see the bigger picture.

Make sure you let your volunteers know what continuous improvement is, why it is important and how it is
being used to make it a better place to work. And most importantly, let them know that their feedback is
integral to the success of the process.

Health and safety

Having a health and safety policy states your organisations commitment to a safe workplace and outlines how
the organisation approaches volunteer health and safety. This includes having appropriate levels of insurance
that protects both your employees and volunteers in case of a work-related injury, illness or death.

This links to National Standards for Involving Volunteers No.4 Work and the workplace.

Managing health and safety issues in your organisation is similar to managing any other risk. You can base your
policy around the stages in the cycle of basic risk management:

Identifying the risks and who is at risk

Assessing and prioritising the impact of each risk
Deciding what you are going to do to control or manage each risk.

Your emergency procedures will need to include things like:

Location of fire escape, fire exits and meeting points

Location and use of fire equipment
Location of first aid supplies
Specific procedures dealing with injuries for example, wearing gloves if an individual is bleeding
Emergency and evacuation plans

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 Who to contact
Procedures for reporting a health and safety issue.

These should be clearly defined during the orientation process.

Volunteers and the law

In Victoria, occupational health and safety (OHS) is regulated under the Occupational Health and Safety Act
2004 and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2007.

Tools and resources

Australasian Association of Volunteer Administrators - OHS Resource Kit (PDF 220KB)

The AAVA's Occupational Health, Safety and Welfare Resource Kit includes information, tips and templates to
help you manage health and safety in the workplace.
Not For Profit Compliance Support Centre - Keeping your workers safe
Information and links to help Victorian not-for-profits understand their health and safety obligations.
Our Community - Policy Bank - Human Resources policies
A collection of policy samples for community organisations. Many of these could be adapted for volunteer
organisations and some volunteer policies are included as examples.
Our Community - Risk Management: Ten Steps to a Safer Organisation
An excellent summary of the risk management approach including a discussion of occupational health and
safety risks.
Justice Connect, Not-for-profit Law - Occupational Health and Safety

Discusses the OHS laws that may apply to your community organisation in regard to volunteers and your
duties and obligations under the OHS Act.

Victorian Council of Social Service - Policy and Procedure Manual

This 136 page guide can be purchased from VCOSS for $30. It identifies broad policy areas, recommends key
policies for community organisations and includes sample policies with tips on how to adapt and implement
them.
WorkSafe Victoria - Volunteer Health and Safety for Community Organisations
A guide for community organisations regarding their health and safety obligations under the Occupational
Health and Safety Act 2004.

Step-by-Step: How to implement effective policies and procedures

By Joanna Weekes on November 9th, 2011

Step 1: Consultation

When developing your policies and procedures, you must consult with all relevant stakeholders, including
health and safety representatives, contractors (particularly those who work with you regularly), and of course
your employees.

Consultation should ensure that every person in your workplace understands the importance of company
policies and procedures and why they need to be implemented effectively.

It will also ensure that the policies and procedures are realistic and actionable on a daily basis.

Tip: Consultation helps to achieve more effective policies and procedures, and is a greater motivation for
employees to follow them.

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 **************************

How to create legally-watertight workplace

documents quickly and confidently without
wasting money on expensive employment lawyer

Click here to find out more

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Step 2: Tailor the policy to your business

The policies and procedures you adopt need to be tailored to the needs of your business, not just lifted
straight from a generic manual.

If you use policies and procedures from another source, it is essential that you adapt them to your company
and your workplace operations.

Step 3: Define obligations clearly be specific!

All policies should be short and succinct.

All procedural steps should be set out in clear and plain English.

This will create an auditable standard, meaning that you create a standard that can be used to measure
whether your workplace health and safety obligations are being met or not.

The obligations outlined in an auditable standard should be defined in enough detail that persons in your
workplace understand exactly what is expected of them.

Specifically state what actions should be taken. For example, dont say dispose of chemicals safely, but state
how this should be done at the site, e.g. chemicals must be disposed of in the designated approved dangerous
goods waste drum.

Step 4: Make the policy realistic

Make sure your business has the time, resources and personnel to implement the policy.

There is no point in adopting a policy which aspires to the best practice possible if your business cannot
realistically adopt the procedures set out.

This is the development stage of the policy and procedure done. Once you have completed these steps, you
will have the policies and procedures your company needs to maintain a healthy and safe workplace.

But the next stage is just as important as the development stage, the implementation stage

Dont get too excited that you have developed the policies and procedures because without implementing
them correctly, they wont be of any use to you.

Stay with us for the rest of the week to find out how to implement your policies and procedures effectively.

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Implementing policies and procedures

Once you have developed your policies and procedures, it's important to make sure they are used in your
organisation, and not just put into a file, never to be looked at again!

As part of your process, make sure you consider how you will communicate the policies and procedures to
staff and volunteers, and ensure they are being used and followed.

Write down how you plan to do this. For example, you could:

Develop a training program that all staff and volunteers have to undertake
At the end of any training or information session, ask participants to complete a short quiz to show
they have understood the information
Incorporate a segment about the policies and procedures, and where to access them, into your
induction and orientation programs, or into your volunteer handbook if you have one
Create posters or process charts to post around the workplace to keep key messages firmly in mind
Regularly promote a policy or procedure in internal newsletters or at team meetings.

It's important that staff and volunteers new and existing understand the purpose of your policies and
procedures, which is to create a safe and welcoming environment for everyone.

Tools and resources

Volunteering Queensland - Developing a Volunteer Management System (PDF 283KB)

An information sheet outlining the benefits of having a volunteer management system, which integrates and
coordinates the core policies, procedures and work documents of the volunteer program.

Step-by-Step: How to implement effective policies and procedures Part 2

By Joanna Weekes on November 11th, 2011

Following Wednesdays OH&S Bulletin, today we have the next three steps for you to take. These steps focus
more on the successful implementation of your policies and procedures, rather than the development of them
which is what we looked into earlier in the week.

Please refer to Wednesdays OH&S Bulletin for the first four steps in the process, and read on for the next
three

Step 5: Publicise the policies and procedures

Put your policies and procedures in writing and make them available to your entire workforce.

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If possible, keep all your policies and procedures in a single manual, and make copies readily available to all
employees.

Tip: Safety documents should also be published on the companys intranet if you have one.

Step 6: Train all employees in policies and procedures

You have an obligation to provide adequate information, instruction, supervision and training to your
employees.

Ensure that new employees and contractors are trained and familiar with company policies and procedures,
and that existing staff receive appropriate training, e.g. annual refresher courses.

Policies and procedures should also be reiterated and discussed with staff regularly at team meetings to
ensure that employees remain aware of the importance of the policies and procedures.

Tip: It is a good idea to have all employees and contractors sign off after they have read, understood and agree
to comply with your workplace policies. You should also keep records of training and induction. Make sure that
you record attendees and details of training content in case an employee fails to sign a training record.

Step 7: Be consistent in your policy implementation

Supervision of your workplace to ensure that the policies and procedures are being properly implemented by
all employees is essential.

Follow-up to ensure that any failure to follow the policy or procedure is addressed.

Specify that full compliance with the stated requirements is needed to ensure a safe workplace.

After this, any deliberate breaches of policies or procedures must be treated seriously, and dealt with
immediately and consistently.

All supervisors and managers must lead by example in implementing policies and procedures. It is crucial that
all OHS expectations are demonstrated through modelling and leadership at all levels of management.

If managers condone practices which do not fall within the policy, it could be argued that disciplinary action
against an employee who fails to follow the policy is unfair. The consequence of any deliberate breach should
be appropriate to the severity of the breach, whether it be:

counselling;
disciplinary action (e.g. a warning); or
in serious circumstances, dismissal.

There are two more steps in this process! Please read our bulletin next week for the final two steps in
implementing your workplace policies and procedures effectively

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