• Please schedule your activities and your time away on the Google Calendar. You can subscribe to your supervisor’s calendar or to the calendar of anyone with whom you’ll be working closely. This can provide important information at a glance. Please talk to your supervisor if you have questions about how to use Google Calendar.

    If you schedule time away from your computer, please remember to change your calendar so coworkers know that you won’t available

  • QVS is committed to providing the best possible working conditions for its employees. Part of this commitment is encouraging an open and frank atmosphere in which any problem, complaint, suggestion, or question receives a timely response from QVS’s management. If employees disagree with established rules of conduct, policies, or practices, they can express their concern through the problem resolution procedure. No employee will be penalized, formally or informally, for voicing a complaint with QVS in a reasonable, business-like manner, or for using the problem resolution procedure.

    If a situation occurs in which employees believe that a condition of employment or a decision affecting them is unjust or inequitable, they are encouraged to make use of the following steps. The employee may discontinue the procedure at any step.

    Employee presents the problem to their immediate supervisor within 14 calendar days after the incident occurs. Prayerful listening and waiting may be practiced. If supervisor is unavailable or employee believes it would be inappropriate to contact that person, employee may present the problem to the Executive Director or clerk of the Executive Committee.

    The supervisor responds to the problem during discussion or normally within a month, after consulting with appropriate management when necessary. The supervisor documents the discussion. In a small organization such as QVS, the best recourse, should the employee and supervisor not be able to work out the conflict would be appointment of a Grievance Committee, at QVS's sole discretion, to review the case and make a recommendation to the Executive Director for disposition of the case. This committee shall normally be appointed by the Executive Director and shall normally be comprised of a member of the Executive Committee and two members appointed by the clerk of the Personnel Subcommittee. The Grievance Committee should complete its review expeditiously and forward its written recommendation to the Executive Director, with a copy (copies) to the employee(s) involved.

    Not every problem can be resolved to everyone's total satisfaction, but only through understanding and discussion of mutual problems can employees and management develop confidence in each other. This confidence is important to the operation of an efficient and harmonious work environment, and helps to ensure everyone's job security.

  • Friends' testimony on equality of all persons commits QVS to providing a work environment free of harassment for its employees, and applicants for employment. QVS does not and will not permit harassment of its employees based on race, religion or creed, color, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, family relationship, disability, national origin, service in the uniformed services, or any other protected class. QVS will not tolerate harassment in any form, whether it is committed by managers, employees, or non-employees. All managers and supervisors are responsible for preventing and eliminating harassment. QVS wishes to support all persons involved throughout the process of addressing harassment complaints.

    Definitions:

    Sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual or gender-based behavior including sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or inappropriate verbal, written, or physical conduct of a sexual nature when:

    such conduct has the purpose or effect on unreasonably interfering with work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment; and/or

    submission to or rejection of such conduct is made a term or condition of employment or advancement, or is used as a basis for any decision affecting an individual's work within or on behalf of the organization.

    Because employees have responsibility for QVS Fellows it would be considered a conflict of purpose and sexual harassment for an employee to engage in an intimate relationship with one of the QVS Fellows.

    Accountability: The Executive Director shall ensure compliance with and implementation of this policy, which covers employees and applicants for employment. Should a complaint be lodged, the Executive Director or the clerk of Executive Committee shall be involved. Retaliation against an individual who either reports orally or files in writing a complaint regarding harassment or who participates in or cooperates with an investigation will not be tolerated. Consistent with law and QVS's responsibility to investigate and address such complaints, confidentiality both of the complainant and of the accused, shall be preserved to the extent possible.

    Complaint Procedures: Employees who believe themselves to be victims of harassment or discrimination should take immediate action so that the situation will not persist in accordance with the following procedure.

    Complaints relating to harassment or discrimination should be brought immediately to the attention of the Executive Director, and, orally or in writing, the individual raising the concern should state the specific details of the harassing or discriminatory behavior. The clerk of the Executive Committee shall be apprised of all such complaints. If the employee finds it difficult or uncomfortable to discuss such a matter with the Executive Director (or if the harassment or discrimination involves the Executive Director), the employee should report the incident to the clerk of the Executive Committee.

    Where the employee is comfortable doing so, the employee may also communicate to the person who has offended that the behavior is objectionable and offensive, and ask the person to stop.

    QVS will listen to all complaints, and will conduct a prompt, full, and impartial investigation of any complaint.

    Employees are required to cooperate fully with any investigation of harassment or discrimination. All employees should act responsibly and truthfully in making allegations, responding to allegations, and providing information in an investigation.

    In the event it is determined that an act of harassment or discrimination in violation of this policy has been committed, QVS may take disciplinary action, up to and including termination, against the individual who has engaged in such conduct.

    All actions taken under this policy by QVS are the final decisions of QVS.

    Prohibition on Retaliation: QVS will not retaliate against any employee because of complaints of harassment or discrimination or because of cooperation with any investigation. Any employee who believes retaliation has resulted from either the reporting of a complaint of harassment or discrimination or from participation in an investigation of such allegations should immediately report this to the Executive Director or the clerk of the Executive Committee.

  • There is no brick-and-mortar QVS office. Not only do we work remotely from one another, we work at different hours.

    Understandably, Fellows and staff on Pacific Time are reluctant to commit to anything before 9:00am Pacific Time. This happens to be lunchtime on the East Coast. By the time Fellows and staff on the East Coast have finished their lunches, Friends in Minneapolis are ready to eat.

    At 2:00pm Eastern, there’s a pretty good chance that everyone is awake and no one is eating lunch. This is QVS Prime Time!

    By 3:00pm Eastern Time, Friends on the West Coast are ready to eat lunch.

    Given the complexity of our situation, what does it look like to embrace the principles of “Dishes +1” in our patterns of communication? How can we do a little extra for the sake of mutual care and support?

  • When you become a QVS employee, you’ll receive a QVS email address. The Operations and Admin Manager will help you get started. A QVS email address belongs to QVS. The organization reserves the right to access and review all emails using the domain @quakervoluntaryservice.org.

    Please use your QVS email address when communicating in your role as a QVS employee.

    Please do not use a QVS email address when registering for a personal social media account or for any other purpose that isn’t work related.

    Using a QVS email address to send offensive or otherwise inappropriate messages may result in discipline up to and including dismissal.

    When you receive a QVS email address, please create a gmail signature to communicate your pronouns, title and contact information. Please include a link to the QVS website and the mailing address for QVS: 500 Westover Dr #16026 | Sanford, NC 27330. You may add other quotes or information that will be helpful to your work and that represent the values of QVS.

  • Please respond to email within one work day. Responding to an email doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve answered every question. You can simply acknowledge that the email was received and give your best estimate on when you’ll be able to respond in full.

    Communicating back to the sender helps them manage their own schedules. If they know you won’t be able to respond for several days, they can turn their attention to other things or contact someone else for the information they need.

    For the same reason, please create an email autoresponder on days you are traveling or out of the office.

  • If you’re scheduling a video conference with one or two other people, please plan to use Google Meet. It’s easy to add this link to anything you schedule on Google Calendar.

    You may use the QVS Zoom account for larger gatherings. Please talk to the Operations and Admin Manager about using Zoom. If you’re using Zoom, don’t forget to schedule the event on the QVS Zoom calendar in Google Calendar.

    If the QVS staff person with whom you’re meeting doesn’t join you within five minutes of the scheduled start time, please send them a text.

  • It’s common for QVS staff to communicate with one another by text. If you want to communicate a brief message or need a quick response, feel free to send a text. For longer messages, email works best.

    Please avoid responding to group texts with a reaction. This can trigger a cascade of alerts for some users. For some users, each reaction recopies the entire message.

    As an alternative to group texts, QVS staff has been using WhatsAp as a way to communicate. Please talk to your supervisor about being added to the group.