Managing Staff & Volunteers

Managing Staff & Volunteers

Whether your organisation is run solely by volunteers or has paid staff (or a combination of both), the Management Committee is responsible for ensuring that systems and structures are in place to provide effective management and support. Good people management helps to contribute to the organisation’s overall effectiveness and its ability to achieve its objectives.

The Management Committee is also responsible for ensuring that the organisation’s policies and practices are compliant with relevant legislation, are kept up to date and that its employment practices are at an acceptable standard.

Where a voluntary organisation employs paid staff, the Management Committee is ultimately the employer. This of course brings additional responsibilities both legally and practically in terms of managing staff. The Management Committee do not usually directly line manage staff or volunteers. The Chairperson usually manages the chief officer. However, they do need to ensure that:

• Appropriate policies and procedures for managing staff and volunteers are in place
• Sufficient resources are provided to train and develop staff and volunteers to carry out their responsibilities
• Staff and volunteers are properly supervised and account regularly for their work

They will also have specific responsibility for providing support, supervision and appraisal for the most senior staff member (the Chief Officer). This role is usually carried out by the Chairperson.

This section introduces some of the basics around managing paid staff and volunteers. However, expert information and advice on these issues is widely available. We have therefore focused on signposting to the best of existing sources of information and advice, both within the voluntary and community sector and beyond.