We are optimistic folks here at Volaby and we are sure many of you are too! However, that doesn’t mean we can just ignore the reality that when we have volunteers helping us deliver impact, something could go wrong. We know health and safety can often be overlooked, and we want to make sure minimising health and safety risks is your number one priority this September.
So, how can you minimise risk in your organisation? What are some ways you can keep your volunteers, and in turn, keep the goals of your organisation safe? Keep reading for our top tips on developing and revising an effective risk management plan, it’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!
1. Identify and assess all possible risks (no matter how big or small)
2. Implement controls and processes to reduce risk
3. Report and refresh
Identify and assess all possible risks (no matter how big or small)
The first step to a comprehensive risk management plan is to brainstorm everything and anything that can go wrong. Take the time to sit down and list all possible risks no matter how big or small. When it comes to risk management, a little time here can save a lot of time, solving big problems in the future.
We recommend you map out the end-to-end Volunteer experience, from when they start making their way to volunteering to when they get safely home. At each of these steps, write down everything that could go wrong. What items and materials do they engage with? What potential things could cause injuries? What outside influences could have a negative impact? This is the time to be a pessimist. The more risks in this step, the better. As the saying goes, you’re hoping for the best but expecting the worst.
At this stage, it may also be beneficial to discuss risks with staff and volunteers. What are issues that commonly arise in your organisation? Do staff have any concerns that need addressing? Do volunteers have any reservations about current processes or certain situations? Have an open and honest conversation with both staff and volunteers to reveal any risks you may not have been aware of.
Once you have a list of all possible risks, give them a score for how likely they are to occur and the severity of the risk occurring. When determining the likelihood of a hazard or potential risk it’s important that you think of the likelihood it will cause injury or damage. It is common to use ratings of Very likely, Likely, Possible, Unlikely and Highly Unlikely. For severity, you are considering how bad the most probable injury or damage would be. Using these two ratings you can group and map your risks on a risk assessment matrix, like the example below.
Risk identification and assessment might not be your favourite task, but it will allow your organisation to develop plans to mitigate risks before they occur. It is an investment in the safety of both your volunteers and your organisation and should be a high priority.
Implement controls and processes to reduce risk
Now that you have a list of everything that could possibly go wrong, it is time to find some solutions (or controls). Ask yourself, what can be done to stop this from happening? Remember, the goal of risk management is to reduce and control all risks to an acceptable level, there may be some risks that cannot be controlled or mitigated. From there, you want to make sure your organisation has operational risk processes that address risk at all levels of your organisation.
One of the most crucial times to address risk with volunteers is in the orientation process. Ensure that risk management processes are discussed with volunteers during their orientation and clear expectations around organisational safety and risk management are outlined. It is also important to address the acceptance of risk with volunteers during the orientation process. What level of risk are volunteers willing to accept? Do the volunteer’s views on risk align with those of the organisation?
⭐Volaby tip: Through Volaby, you have the option to choose required onboarding tasks and quizzes which can be used to attach important safety sheets and training guides, require tasks such as police checks to be completed and create quizzes to test volunteer knowledge. We suggest creating a volunteer orientation safety video and testing your incoming volunteer’s knowledge with a quiz task.
Report and refresh
In a perfect world, nothing would ever go wrong but even the most comprehensive risk management plans cannot reduce incidents to 0. When things go wrong it is important to have a well-refined and comprehensive process for volunteers to submit incident reports, and importantly someone to review them and take appropriate action.
⭐Volaby Tip: Through Volaby you can create incident reports for sessions including important information on the who, what, when, where and why as well as a traffic light safety rating to alert the priority of incidents. When an incident report is lodged, the relevant people within the organisation are alerted and have the option to alter the report to increase/decrease the priority or add additional information. The Volaby incident reporting tool is a great way to give volunteers the ability to raise concerns with the organisation and contribute to safer operations.
Beyond just defining a process to report incidents, you also need to define how the organisation responds. What situations would warrant a low priority (green), medium priority (amber) and high priority (red) incident rating? What situations would require immediate organisation attention? In what situations should volunteers call emergency services? It is important to ensure volunteers know that while the organisation has risk measures in place, there are still situations that are out of the organisation’s hands and require immediate emergency attention.
The results from incident reporting are a great tool to review and refine the organisation’s risk management processes, what is working and what is not working? What needs to be added to ensure the ongoing safety of volunteers? Do you have a process to follow up on incident reports to ensure necessary measures are being followed after the incident?
Finally, it is crucial to review and refine your risk processes often. If it has been a while since you have reviewed your organisational processes, consider investing some time to ensure the safety of both your volunteers and your organisation. Refresh volunteer training and ensure that risk and safety are being addressed periodically after orientation.
Top Tips from our partners: Orange Sky Australia
A Take 5 is a type of risk assessment designed to help simply and effectively identify any potential hazards and risks that might be present with a job or task your volunteers are about to undertake so they can control the risks to complete the job or task safely. The five steps of a Take 5 are as follows:
- Stop, step back and think – take a moment to think about what you are doing
- Identify any hazards – what are we going to do that could be dangerous?
- Assess the level of risk – is it low, medium or high?
- Control the hazards – what can we do to make it safe?
- Proceed safely – look out for one another; if in doubt ask for help
Take 5’s have been effective at promoting safety awareness, this 5-step assessment can help your volunteers prevent possible near misses, injuries, and accidents. So, before your volunteers commence any hazardous task, ensure that they first complete the Take 5 safety assessment.
Want to improve your risk management processes?
At Volaby, we understand how important health and safety is in a non-profit.
Our volunteer management and social impact data-capture software was created by Orange Sky to help to track and automate risk management processes and spend more time where it matters – making a difference!
Our platform is a one-stop shop for volunteer training and safety guides, incident reporting and incident management. Made by nonprofits, for nonprofits and their volunteers. We’ve made it easy to use and intuitive for everyone who uses it. We invite you to get in touch and trial Volaby for free today, with no obligations.
We look forward to speaking with you soon.