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May 03, 2021

Occupational Safety and Health Week

Category: Administration, Church Plants | Tags: , ,

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Workplace Hazards for Churches and Non-Profits

Today we want to provide some factors of safety and health in the workplace in honor of Workplace Safety Week.

First, let’s highlight what we aren’t going to go into detail about, but still deserves a moment in the spotlight. First, we won’t go into detail regarding the necessity of enforcing background checks for all employees and volunteers, especially those working with children; but this is a good first step towards safety. Next, this article is not about lifting heavy objects correctly – although we do advocate for that, too. Lastly, while we now all know how vital cleaning our spaces are, we aren’t going to go into detail about that either.

Want more info on Background Checks? Visit Church Mutual’s post

We will be tackling physical security teams, cybersecurity, and mental health in the workplace.

Security

Now, let’s jump right into securing your physical space. A security team may be necessary in large group gatherings, but we also want to mention the day-to-day safety of your employees. During onboarding training, there is usually the rundown of fire exits and tornado locations; but there is also a lot of information being thrown at your new employee in the first few days.

Having ongoing training sprinkled into existing meetings – or taking the time to add a separate meeting once a year – may be the best solution for your team. Also included in these meetings should be instructions around intruder safety and proper ways to handle different situations that may walk into your specific organization.

Our friends at Strategos International recently posted this article that may be a good place to start, if your organization does not currently have any kind of security team.

Does Church Security Make Your Church Less Welcoming?
Does Church Security Make Your Church Less Welcoming? Strategos International

The last note we will mention before moving on, is the importance of financial safety. Making sure access to donations, petty cash, and check stock should have a detailed system in place and only certain people should have access to these areas. We provided a list on our Check Signors post, if you want more details.

Volunteers

Training staff may be second nature to your organization, but let’s also not forget the importance of training volunteers. Included in their training, should be the building exit plans due to an emergency, the location of the first aid kits, important numbers, and also properly handling visitors on your campus.

Like we mentioned above, staff should definitely know the above things as well, but your volunteers could be the first line of defense in some of these cases, and you want them to feel prepared. Helping volunteers feel prepared and confident in their knowledge can make a good volunteer and great volunteer.

IT

Let’s move on to Cybersecurity. This can be a real threat, especially if you are housing personal information tied to your donors. Having a system in place, with local backups and anti-virus software may be all you need. But if your budget allows, outsourcing this aspect is a great resource to make sure your organization is covered.

Check out our blog on Outsourcing: Safety for some more ideas in this area.

Mental Health

While MM services may not directly help in this area, we do want to provide some resources, and also speak to the role of the organization. Is your organization at a place where they can provide resources to employees on site? Or do you have a resource to provide? Also, is this something that you can have in place for people that come looking for help? A church can be a valuable resource for people needing help, but not sure where to start.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness has some resources available, plus an Awareness Event Guide for the May – June 2021 season. While the Mental Health First Aid, provides a plethora of other information as well.

Other Resources for Workplace Safety:

Those are the big topics we wanted to broadly cover today. But if your church or non-profit needs some other help, below are a few more resources.

Workplace Safety Tips for Churches