Having made the point that you should never create a policy that your volunteers are going to be forced to break, I should immediately note that sometimes policy has to be broken. You cannot think of all possible situations, and all possible conflicts, when creating a policy. Your policy is never going to be perfect. Therefore, there are always going to be situations where the policy has to be broken.
Therefore, one of the things that you should always do is to have a policy breaking policy. What is it that your people are to do when the policy, for whatever reason, cannot be followed? As far as possible, this policy should give guidance as to what kinds of occurrences or situations would justify not following a policy. However, since you cannot foresee all possible situations (and if you can foresee them, you can probably craft your policy in such a way as to avoid those situations), this probably isn't going to be terribly effective. Possibly the best that you are able to achieve in this regard is to address, or list, principles which might justify the fact that a policy cannot be followed.
More importantly, your policy should, particularly, address who is allowed to make the call that a policy is not to be followed. Are all the volunteers allowed to make this call? Are only shift leaders allowed to make this call? *Are* shift leaders allowed to make this call? How far up the organizational food chain do we have to go before we reach someone who is allowed to make the call that, in this particular situation, the policy is not to be followed?
In pretty much all cases where a policy cannot be followed, or must be broken, a written report, with justification, should be provided. Your policy might contain a form, giving details of the situation, the policy that could not be followed, the person making the call, and additional details of date, time, location, and those involved in the situation, both within and outside the volunteer organization. You may create a form for this purpose, or simply write into the policy the details to be included in any such report, and to whom the report is to be submitted, and copied.
These reports should be reviewed, and as a priority. The first point to note is whether this situation is likely to recur, and whether your policy has created a situation where the policy must, frequently, be broken. If so, the policy needs to be amended as quickly as possible. Once again, ensure that you do not have an active policy which requires that your volunteers are regularly in a situation where a policy cannot be followed.
In some cases the situation might be rare enough that an amendment to the policy is not necessary or justified. This is possible, but be careful, and deciding this, that you are not simply taking the easy way out. As noted, no policy is never going to be absolutely perfect, and there are going to be some situations that you simply can't address. However, ensure that this is truly a rare situation, and that it cannot be addressed by some amendment of the policy.
Volunteer management - VM - 0.00 - introduction and table of contents
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