Health And Safety Guidelines For Employee Volunteers
The importance of health and safety in volunteering and the particular issues faced by employee volunteers have led to a new publication, the Employee Volunteering Health and Safety Guidelines, published by Volunteering New Zealand.
The official launch of the guidelines took place at the Nikau Corporate Challenge event, at which corporate/employee projects organised through Volunteer Wellington were celebrated.
"It is recognised that employees going from their usual workplaces to do short term volunteer assignments may be going into a very different work environment and there is therefore a need to pay special attention to their health and safety requirements," said Tim Burns, Executive Director of Volunteering NZ.
"The aim of the guidelines is to meet this need by providing background information, comprehensive checklists and other reference material which can be used by all the parties involved."
The guidelines are intended to be used by host community organisations assisted by employee volunteers, the employees themselves and their employers, and those agencies such as volunteer centres which help organise employee volunteering projects.
The production of the guidelines has been made possible for Volunteering NZ through the generous support of Mobil Oil NZ which provided the funding to meet the costs involved.
The guidelines are available on Volunteering NZ's website and a limited number of printed copies of the guidelines will be available from Volunteering NZ and the 19 offices of the volunteer centres situated throughout New Zealand.
In addition to employee volunteers, guidelines will also help other groups of volunteers who come from organisations such as church and welfare groups which wish to assist other community organisations.
"They would also be a very useful reference tool for those situations where groups of spontaneous volunteers are mobilised," said Mr Burns.
"The health and safety of those who joined the Student Volunteer Army and the Farmy Army in Christchurch was recognised very early and measures put in place as their roles developed. Having this resource available online at the start would have been very useful for them," he said.
To download the guidelines, visit: http://www.volunteeringnz.org.nz/ .