Talk:Staff Policies

Volunteer and Intern Agreement

I'm confused. Why should I have to sign an agreement to stop by the office? Why does this only apply to volunteers at the office and not those working remotely? What is the point of it if is binding "in honour only"? Why does it contradict the draft Expense policy? What does Travel to and from home by public transport during your work within zone 6 mean—that expenses will only be reimbursed if I've travelled from within the M25 and only by public transport? If so, why? Why is To perform your volunteering role to the best of your ability necessary? The (one) luxury of being a volunteer is that a volunteer can do as much or as little work as they please. What are you going to do if the volunteer doesn't keep to the agreement? You can't fire them, they're a volunteer! In what sort of situation would it be necessary To provide referees as agreed if requested who may be contacted, and to agree to a Criminal Records Bureau check being carried out where necessary? And why is this part of the Staff Policies, and why has it been hidden so far down an out-of-the-way page, not publicised, and only made public three days before the Board meeting at which it is to be approved?

The whole approach (and in my opinion idea) of this agreement is wrong. Volunteers are not staff, and should not be treated like staff. Volunteers for WMUK are not people who go out selling raffle tickets on a Sunday afternoon, volunteers are at the heart of the organisation, and in many cases will have a better understanding of the organisation and its mission than staff members. Volunteers volunteer because they deeply care about WMUK and/or the Wikimedia movement, and we have staff to assist volunteers in fulfilling our mission as an organisation. Professionalisation is good and necessary, but not at the expense of the volunteer ethos.

We need to be providing more support for volunteers, and not tie them down with this sort of bureaucracy, which is only going to put people off. Anything that makes it harder for a volunteer to (in principle) just turn up and make themselves useful is a Very Bad Thing™. Harry Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 05:53, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Harry this could appear misleading. This is a policy that applies to people who are volunteering to do office duties so that could be filing, stuffing envelopes etc and is to acknowledge their expenses incurred in doing so. It certainly would not apply to the many who just drop in for a few hours here and there.

The idea is to make sure that people especially those who are not earning much, or in the future interns, are not exploited.

On a few specifics. Zones 1-6 are the London Transport zones and this is a way of basically linting costs to the Charity on a day-to-day basis. Exceptions of course are and will be made when appropriate.

The paperwork - Yes pretty horrible but a safety thing for us as a charity but again only if people are interns or doing a day as an office assistant. It all goes back to test cases around volunteering that have rumbled through Industrial Tribunals over the last few years. We can ignore it but probably wise to have an electronic register that people can sign.

The CRB thing is when appropriate. So if we were doing work in schools it might be. Remember these policies are also for an outside audience to see that we are doing things responsibly.

Finally nothing in this stops people coming in - I am expecting someone later today - or volunteering . Heaven forfend. It is intended for those coming in as interns or to do office support work.

And finally nobody is obliged to claim their travel or the lunch allowance but I suspect we have a few potential volunteers for whom this small amount of money could make the difference between coming in or not.

I will go and have a look at the policy now and see if I can make some of these things clearer.

Thanks for looking at them - not the most exciting read.

PS I don't think this contradicts our expenses policy which was revised recently see http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Financial_protocols_and_regulations Jon Davies WMUK 09:35, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Jon, it makes much more sense with those clarifications and the introduction you've added. Harry Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:00, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I have redirected Expense policy to the Financial protocols page. There're a lot of old pages hanging around on the wiki that we slowly need to tidy up... Richard Symonds 14:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

It's novel that this wiki is big enough for such things to actually matter! ;) Harry Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:00, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this whole "binding in honour only thing" either. If it's not binding, don't call it an "agreement". Call the bits WMUK does policy and the bits the volunteer does guidelines and don't bother with filling in individual names and signing things. One exception is confidentiality - that probably should be legally binding. --Tango 19:16, 8 February 2012 (UTC)