Managing Volunteers - Best Practice

Team London requires all organisations who recruit volunteers through our website to agree to the Team London Best Practice guidelines. This outlines best practice for volunteer management in line with Greater London Volunteering and NCVO guidelines.

Team London Best Practice sets out what is expected of organisations who will be using Team London volunteers to support their projects, events and initiatives, and is designed to ensure that volunteers are supported, well managed, clear about their roles and responsibilities, and treated fairly.

• Volunteers should only ever be involved because they add value and should not be used to replace paid staff or to reduce costs.
• All volunteer roles should either help to create functions that would not exist in the absence of volunteers, or enhance an existing function in a way that would not happen without volunteers.
• All volunteer roles should provide volunteers with high levels of satisfaction, and the chance to gain new or enhance existing skills and experiences.
• Organisations must ensure that they provide appropriate volunteer insurance cover.
• Volunteers should always receive an induction or introduction to the organisation and any training that is relevant to their role. This should ensure that volunteers understand their responsibilities and ensure they can carry out their role safely.
• You should include Health & Safety, outline of roles and responsibilities, practicalities of the role and identify a contact in the organisation as well as support and supervision arrangements.
• Wherever possible volunteers should be reimbursed for out of pocket expenses incurred while volunteering. This may include travel expenses or refreshments. The volunteer must always be informed before they start the role whether expenses are being reimbursed. The volunteer role description should be transparent around this issue.
• Organisations must provide access to an identified support person who will be the main point of contact for the volunteers.
• Organisations should have a problem solving procedure in place for when things go wrong.

To ensure volunteers are given appropriate information to make an informed decision about whether they would feel comfortable volunteering for you, organisations are asked to state clearly in their organisation’s description any religious, political or campaigning commitments or affiliations.