During the busy end-of-year holiday season, there are numerous causes that rely on volunteer support, such as ‘De Warmste Week’, ‘Music For Life’, ‘Les Restos du Coeur’ and ‘Caritas’. But does the Well-being Act also apply to volunteer workers? Here’s everything you need to know if you’re an employer planning to work with volunteers.

Many sectors rely on volunteer staff, including hospitals, healthcare facilities, fair trade organisations, sports centres, cultural organisations and non-governmental organisations. What are the rights and obligations of these volunteers? Do they fall within the scope of the Well-being Act? And what are your responsibilities as an employer?

A volunteer worker is someone who chooses to commit time and energy for the benefit of other people or for an organisation, with no employment contract and usually without receiving remuneration. However, in some cases, volunteer workers are remunerated, e.g. for travel expenses.

If you are working with volunteers, you are required to provide these workers with certain information (employers’ duty to furnish information), including the following:

• the purpose of your organisation;
• the type of organisation (e.g. non-profit association, unincorporated association, municipal executive);
• the insurance policies taken out to cover volunteer workers;
• any expenses that will be reimbursed, including how and when.

The employer chooses how to inform volunteer workers about these details: via a signed document, online, through a course, etc. Click here for an easy reference guide. Also important to note is that volunteer workers are bound by confidentiality.

Use a record of volunteer work if you are reimbursing expenses incurred by your volunteer workers.

Volunteer workers do not fall within the scope of the Well-being Act, unless a relationship of authority exists, such as with volunteer firefighters. As this concerns a factual issue, it is up to the court to decide whether such a relationship of authority exists.

A proposal submitted by the Parliamentary Committee for the Well-being Act to apply, by extension, to all volunteer workers, was not sustained.

• Scope of application ratione personae (Well-being Act, Federal Public Service for well-being in the workplace)
• High Council for Volunteers