People management
The people who enable your youth club to operate – including paid staff, volunteers or trustees – are your greatest asset. But how much do you invest in their training and development? How do you communicate with them? How seriously do you take their health and safety? And are you observing other legal aspects of their employment and management?
By devoting time and resources to the people who make your youth club happen, you can improve both the effectiveness and long term stability of your group as well as the well-being, training and development of those individuals.
What's out there?
There is a wealth of information, advice and support available to you, whether your youth club has staff with a dedicated HR/personnel/volunteer management role, or not. And much of the information is also aimed at small to medium-sized voluntary or community organisations.
NCVO provides an overview of the core things you need to know when managing staff and volunteers in a voluntary or community organisation. Topics include contracts and terms and conditions of employment, employee rights and benefits, equality, health and safety, managing volunteers, recruitment, pay and remuneration, termination of employment and workforce planning and strategy.
NCVO have also compiled a number of factsheets aimed at small and medium-sized voluntary and community organisations which highlight good employment practice. The factsheets are adapted from the The Good Guide to Employment: Managing and Developing People in Voluntary and Community Organisations, also available from NCVO.
Factsheets cover:
A range of free templates are available which you can customise to your youth club. The templates will help you with, for example, the development of policies, job descriptions and good diversity practice. A range of sample HR policies and job descriptions from real organisations are also available via HR Bank. NCVO also provides everything you need to know in order to conduct a Training Needs Analysis, including a step-by-step guide and templates. And there is also a series of ‘How To Guides’ on a variety of topics.
Who can help?
It is estimated that over 5.2 million volunteers work with young people in England. The support and development opportunities you provide to your volunteers are essential if they are to deliver effective services to the young people in your youth club.
If you manage volunteers, Volunteering England provides more specific information and advice in relation to their recruitment and support. And the Children's Workforce Development Council's volunteer management web page also provides a series of links to relevant support and resources for volunteer managers within the children, young people and families workforce.
For information on workforce issues specific to the youth sector, go to the website of the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services (NCVYS). They also provide information on training opportunities, qualifications, volunteering and careers for people working in the youth sector. Access to funding to support training and other areas of workforce development has been identified by NCVYS as one of the biggest barriers facing staff and volunteers in voluntary and community youth organisations. If this is an issue for your youth club take a look at Funding and Costing Workforce and Governance Development, published by NCVO, which provides a toolkit consisting of templates and budget processes.
If you are looking to buy in HR support or advice for your youth club, a map of HR services available to voluntary and community organisations in the London region has been published by NCVO.
LVSC's Personnel, Employment Advice and Conciliation Service (PEACe) provides a free telephone and email advice service on employment law and HR issues for voluntary sector organisations in London. They also provide HR consultancy support, in-house training and legal support.
Some specifics to keep in mind
The Equality Act 2010 brings together a number of existing laws into one place so that it is easier to use. It sets out the personal characteristics that are protected by the law and the behaviour that is unlawful. Everyone in Britain is protected by the Act, under which people are not allowed to discriminate, harass or victimise another person because they have any of the nine protected characteristics (e.g. age, race, disability, sex, pregnancy and maternity, etc). There is also protection against discrimination where someone is perceived to have one of the protected characteristics or where they are associated with someone who has a protected characteristic.
If you are an employer you will have responsibilities under the Act. More information on what this means for your youth club is available from the Government Equality Office website which has a section dedicated to voluntary and community organisations. The Equality and Human Rights Commission website also provides guidance and good practice to help you understand the new Act. In addition, Acas provides information for employers while the Charity Commission provides information for organisations that restrict their beneficiaries.
Health and safety at work is an important responsibility of employers. The HSE website provides a step by step guide to your responsibilities. You must, for example, write a health and safety policy. This sets out the arrangements you have put in place for managing health and safety in your organisation. It is a unique document that says who does what, when and how.
A risk assessment is an important step in protecting your people and your youth club, as well as complying with the law. If you are an employer, you are required by law to protect people as far as is reasonably practicable. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) publishes a guide which tells you how to achieve that very simply. Five Steps to Risk Assessment takes you through an uncomplicated examination of what, in the workplace, could cause harm to people, so that you can weigh up whether you have taken enough precautions or should do more to prevent harm.
An introduction to health and safety: Health and safety in small businesses, together with a range of other help and resources, are also available from the HSE website.
| Attachment | Size |
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| London Youth Sample Equal Opportunities and Diversity Policy.pdf | 134.51 KB |
