Community Employees

Employment and recruitment of Community employees

All Community staff are employed and paid by US Centre, out of each Community's local budget. This means that all employment contracts and the legal relationships between employer and employee, exist between the United Synagogue and the staff member, not locally.

The HR team are responsible for all employment matters, including those involving casual staff. Practically, this covers legal, procedural and the most serious disciplinary matters. For a summary of the Chair’s HR responsibilities, please see this presentation provided by HR.

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

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

The US has several employment policies which you should be familiar with. These can be found online here.

Employee Code of Conduct
Dignity at Work policy
Pregnancy loss policy
Sexual Harassment policy
Menopause and menstruation policy
Rabbinic Code of Conduct

With guidance from HR, local lay-leaders are expected to manage routine and irregular employment-related matters in line with UK employment law. This may include

employee appraisals
managing minor disciplinary processes.
conducting regular one-to-one meetings,
consultation meetings or
gathering information if a formal process is needed.

Recruitment

All staff recruitment should take place in close consultation with HR. Please note that a Chair may be held personally liable for actions taken regarding recruitment or other HR matters.

[For Rabbinic recruitment, the Community Development Team is also involved].

You must not begin any recruitment activity, including asking around informally (putting out ‘feelers’) or placing an advertisement without first consulting:

Your Community’s HR Business Partner (for all general recruitment including part-time or youth-focused roles); and
the Director of HR - for all Rabbinic recruitment.

Chairs should work with HR to prepare key elements of the recruitment such as Job Descriptions, advertising copy and financial guidance etc. These tasks can be delegated to members of the Executive and Synagogue Council if appropriate.

Line Management

Although you do not personally need to line-manage every member of staff or volunteer, you must ensure that appropriate management is in place for:

Assistant Rabbinic staff
Administrative staff
youth-facing staff
premises and any other employed staff

Professionals should be line managed by appointed lay-leaders or other professionals.

Volunteers at all levels also require management by someone responsible for their area of contribution. Volunteers may be managed by appointed lay-leaders, professionals or experienced volunteers.

For guidance on line management, contact Simon Meekings, Head of Learning & Development

For the line-management of Senior Rabbinic Staff, see [add link]

Performance and line-management of Community employees

You are responsible for ensuring that employees’ performance meets expected standards, to maintain the smooth running of your Community. To support this:

review Job Descriptions regularly to check they are still relevant
ensure employees meet line-managers regularly
discuss feedback, training and development needs

As a line manager, although not an employee, you can be held vicariously liable if an employee is not treated with appropriate dignity and respect. Always remember that you represent both yourself and your Community. Ask for help before matters become more serious.

All salary decisions including increases and bonus payments must be agreed with HR before any local conversations take place. Unapproved local changes can have an impact on consistency and the perception of fairness across the organisation and can create legal risk.

Salary changes for Rabbinic and senior staff 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.

HR will provide you with disciplinary and grievance procedures to use 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. New guidance for matters involving volunteers is being published shortly.

Working with Administrative Staff

Administrative Staff are the essential to the smooth running of your Community. You should meet with them regularly to:

Review workload and priorities
Ensure tasks are manageable
Contact them primarily during working hours
Avoid requesting out-of-hours work on a frequent basis.

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

Using CoreHR

As Chair, you are responsible for HR matters in your Community, which includes using CoreHR, the US HR software. Your main activities will focus on Line Manager activities for any staff members who you directly manage. Line Managers are responsible for approving annual leave, recording sickness and requesting contractual changes.

FRs also have certain sign-off responsibilities regarding expenses and other payments.

Employees can update their personal details within the system and request annual leave.

A video introduction to CoreHR is available and your HR Business Partner can probvide additional support. Further CoreHR resources are available here.