Community Employees

Employment and recruitment of Community employees

All Community staff are employed and paid by US Centre out of local Community budgets. All employment contracts and employer-employee legal relationships are between the US and the employee.

HR are responsible for all employment matters, including with regard to casual staff. Practically, this overall responsibility covers legal, procedural and the most serious disciplinary matters. Please see this presentation for a summary of Chairs’ responsibility regarding HR and areas of support: [add link]

If a disciplinary matter arises concerning any staff or volunteers, you must contact your HR Business Partner or the Director of HR immediately.

With case-specific guidance from HR, local lay-leaders should comply with UK employment law and handle both routine and irregular employment-related matters, including employee appraisals, and minor disciplinary processes. This may involve conducting regular one-to-one meetings, consultation meetings or gathering data to be used within a formal process.

CoreHR is the US’s digital tool for HR management – there are videos and manuals to help you learn how to use it [add link]

Recruitment

Staff recruitment should take place in close consultation with HR and, when recruiting Rabbinic Staff, also the Community Development Team. Please do not initiate any recruitment process, including putting out informal ‘feelers’ or advertisements, before consultation with:
- the Community’s HR Business Partner [add link], for general recruitment including processes for part-time or youth-focused roles; and
- for recruitment of Rabbinic Staff, the Director of HR.

You are responsible in practice for working with HR to produce elements of recruitment including Job Descriptions; drafting copy for advertising; financial guidance, etc. These tasks can be delegated to members of the Executive and Synagogue Council.

Line Management

Although you do not personally have to line-manage everyone who works or volunteers for your Community, you must ensure that appropriate management is in place for Assistant Rabbinic Staff; Administrative Staff; youth-facing staff; and any other staff. Volunteers at all levels also require management by someone responsible for their area of contribution.

Line-managers for professionals should be elected lay-leaders or other professionals. Managers of volunteers though, can be elected lay-leaders, professionals or other volunteers.

For the recruitment and line-management of Senior Rabbinic Staff, see [add link] Appendix 1: Recruitment and Line-Management of Senior Rabbinic Staff.

Performance and line-management of Community employees

It is the Chair’s responsibility to hold employees’ performance to expected standards. You should therefore review employees’ Job Descriptions periodically to ensure that they remain relevant and should ensure that employees meet regularly with their line-managers, so that feedback is exchanged, and employees’ training and development needs can be met by their line-managers.

As a line manager, although not an employee, you can be held liable (vicariously) if an employee is not treated with appropriate dignity and respect. You should always be mindful that you represent your Community as well as yourself.

All salary adjustments, including salary increases and bonus payments, must be agreed with HR prior to any local negotiations.
- Local changes can have an impact on consistency and the perception of fairness across the organisation and can create legal risk. Please note that Rabbinic Staff and senior staff salary changes require the approval of the US Trustees’ Remuneration Committee.

If a disciplinary matter arises concerning any staff or volunteers, you must contact your HR Business Partner or the Director of HR immediately.

If a dispute arises involving any employee (including volunteers), you should contact HR, who can provide you with disciplinary and grievance procedures to implement in your Community: please don’t devise something ‘from scratch’. It is important to share all relevant information with HR so that they can advise appropriately.
- Administrative Staff are the organisational backbone of your Community. You should meet with Administrative Staff on a regular basis.
- Ensure their workload is reasonable; and
- Not impose or request out-of-hours work on a frequent or regular basis.

Michelle Mervish (Head of Membership and Community Administration) can advise further on how best to work with your Administrative Staff. They have a wide range of tasks, and your Community will benefit if they are able to plan and prioritise these in discussion with you.