Staff and volunteers at Wayside Waifs Animal Shelter stand gathered under a canopy, all dressed in matching red t-shirts save two staff, who are dressed in pink and blue.

Animal shelter staff and volunteers experience unique workplace challenges. Burnout and compassion fatigue are overwhelmingly common as shelter workers manage a near daily overabundance of intakes, witness cases of abuse and neglect, and are confronted with the life and death of animals on a consistent basis.

When it comes to supporting staff, the cards are stacked against shelter managers. With limited budgets and resources, high turnover, and overwhelming needs from both staff and residents, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s important while you try to keep your head above water. Let’s talk about four simple ways to support your staff members, and how to implement them in the challenging environment of an animal shelter.

Why Is Supporting Staff So Important?

When faced with such overwhelming need, matters like workplace culture and employee benefits can start to feel really trivial. Why bother with the little things when the big needs are so pressing?

Organizations with high levels of employee turnover face lots of hidden costs, which often exceed the investments necessary to simply retain existing employees. Between the resources needed for recruitment, the cost of on-boarding and training new employees, and the disruption to the workplace as new employees get acclimated to their new job, workplaces suffer negative impacts to their finances and productivity. According to some estimates, the price of replacing an employee can run up to $40,000 once all is said and done.

The animal sheltering industry has a history of struggles with employee recruitment and retention, and the impacts of high turnover reverberate throughout the whole shelter, with costs far beyond profits lost. In an organization that is focused on helping a vulnerable population, failure to invest in employees can have dire consequences, creating a domino effect that negatively impacts capacity for care, staff mental health, and even euthanasia rates.

A blonde shelter volunteer leans over a German Shepard who looks up at her with his tongue out. — Shelter staff and volunteers often enter animal welfare work because of their love for animals, only to face the difficult decisions that must be made in the course of shelter work.

Our Top Four Best Practices for Staff & Volunteer Welfare

Supporting staff and volunteers doesn’t have to be complicated. We’ve created a simple list of five best practices that you can start implementing today to create a more well-rounded, engaged, and motivated team at your shelter.

Prioritize Communication & Trust

Communication and trust are the cornerstones of any good relationship. Your staff cannot be successful without clear expectations, and your shelter cannot be successful if you can’t let go and trust the people who work in it. Here are some strategies to promote communication and trust in your animal shelter:

Be intentional about hiring: Long before an employee is even hired, you should be taking steps to promote trust and set clear expectations. Clearly outline job roles and expectations throughout the hiring process, and don’t settle for employees whose judgement you do not trust. By hiring staff that you trust, it will be easier to release the reins and allow employees to take control of their work life.
Provide comprehensive training: Lots of workplaces believe in throwing employees in the deep end, allowing them to sink or swim–don’t be one of them. With all of the unique challenges of sheltering work, don’t add the extra burden of a tumultuous onboarding. Instead, create a streamlined, predictable, and comprehensive system for onboarding and training that will leave new hires feeling competent and at home in their workplace.

Make space for job crafting: Studies have found that employees who are able to make self-initiated changes to their jobs to better fit their needs, abilities, and preferences report higher levels of engagement, job satisfaction, and performance. Also known as job crafting, this can include things like adjusting the timing and order of work tasks. Often thought of as a bottom-up approach for employees to manage their own work stress, shelter managers can make space for job crafting by trusting employees to have autonomy in their roles. Where possible, staff should be given the freedom to make adjustments to how tasks are performed, to dictate the order in which tasks are completed, or even to set their own working hours.

Shelter staff members sit at tables and participate in a staff training held by Laurie Lawless. — Regular staff trainings are a great way to ensure that everybody is up to speed on best practices and policies while providing much-needed continuing education.

Communicate consistently: Plan consistent times to communicate with staff during one-on-one supervision and staff meetings. Regular staff meetings provide an opportunity for staff to ask questions, receive programming updates, and make adjustments to pathway plans, while one-on-one meetings allow for more personalized feedback.

Don’t just talk, listen: Half of communication is listening, and this shouldn’t be overlooked when building trust with your employees. It’s important to recognize that your staff has unique perspectives and insights into the day-to-day runnings of your shelter, and their ideas should be considered and implemented wherever possible.
Say “thank you”: Humanitarian work can feel like a thankless profession–but it doesn’t have to be. Set aside consistent times to say thank you to your staff, whether in day-to-day interactions, through handwritten notes, or regular staff appreciation parties.

2. Provide Opportunities for Growth

Several studies speak to the fact that opportunities for professional development greatly increase employee engagement, job satisfaction, and retention rates. Here are a few ways to ensure that your employees feel engaged, empowered, and valued in your shelter:

Invest in continuing education: Ensure that staff are constantly learning new skills and strategies by providing access to educational resources. This can include certifications, conferences, workshops, and webinars.
Hire from within: Humanitarian work is hard, but it’s a little easier with good managers who understand you. Hiring from within allows your employees to feel like there are opportunities for upward mobility within your company, and it ensures that your managers understand the employees that they supervise because they’ve been in their shoes before.

3. Be Intentional About Culture

Culture can make or break a job. Several studies speak to the fact that factors like a bad manager and lack of appreciation contribute greatly to staff turnover, with many respondents indicating that these factors have influenced them to leave past positions that they otherwise enjoyed. Cultivating a good culture is essential to staff mental health, and its impacts reverberate throughout shelter operations. Here are a few ways to start thinking about culture in your shelter:

Encourage collaboration between co-workers: Research has found positive relationships with co-workers to be a protective factor against burnout and compassion fatigue. Shelter workers naturally rely upon each other for support, and shelter managers can lean into this by creating peer support programs or holding regular staff meetings to work through difficult cases as a team.

Two shelter staff members in grey shirts talk outside of a fenced playgroup area. One staff member has a collection of leashes strapped to her chest while the other holds a clipboard. — Fostering positive co-working relationships is an essential part of keeping your staff engaged, motivated, and insulated from compassion fatigue and burnout.

Be compassionate with staff policy: We all make mistakes. Non-compassionate staff policies–like requiring staff to pay for mistakes, deducting from wages, or requiring proof of doctors’ visits and funerals–promote a culture of fear and pointed fingers.
Encourage time off: When working with those in need, it can get especially hard to maintain a good work-life balance. When there are an abundance of residents in need, animal shelter staff often feel a natural guilt when they take a break–don’t make it worse by texting them on their days off. Instead, encourage your employees to take full advantage of PTO, provide mental health days, and avoid unnecessary contact with staff outside of working hours. A few days’ lost productivity will pay off in the long run.

4. Insulate From Vicarious Trauma

Chronic work stress can lead to burnout in any industry, but sheltering work is unique in that it puts staff members in regular contact with animal suffering. Shelter staff witness cases of abuse and neglect, care for sick and injured animals, and deal with the behavioral impacts of resident animals’ traumatic backgrounds. Moreover, shelter employees with euthanasia tasks are placed in direct contact with death on a regular basis.

Numerous research studies have catalogued the profound psychological effects of participation in euthanasia, including significantly higher levels of work stress, higher instances of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stress-related physical symptoms, and lower levels of job satisfaction. In order to support your employees, you must acknowledge the distinctive psychological strain placed on shelter staff and take steps to insulate them from vicarious trauma, including:

Providing mental health services & psychoeducation: Promote personal coping strategies by providing staff with mental health training and on-site counseling and mentoring.
Increasing staff numbers: More staff ensures that no one employee is overloaded with excessive work and emotional fatigue, but for many of the reasons we’ve outlined today, it can be hard for shelters to hire and retain staff. However, engaging in intentional hiring practices and utilizing some of the strategies mentioned in this article can go a long way toward building a well-rounded, competent team of staff.
Rotating job responsibilities: As mentioned above, the impacts of euthanasia responsibilities cannot be overstated. While it’s impossible to avoid difficult tasks altogether, ensure that no staff members are overloaded with emotionally gruelling work by rotating job responsibilities on a consistent basis.

Laurie Lawless and Wayside Waifs staff member pose for a photo together. — Laurie Lawless, founder of Shelter Behavior Integrations, knows the importance of building personal relationships with staff and volunteers. She makes it a point to provide on-site guidance where possible, building connections with the team members she works with.

It’s Simple, But It Isn’t Always Easy

In the abstract, supporting shelter employees is simple, but it’s often difficult in practice. Good intentions can go out the window in the face of crisis, and it’s easy to get overloaded. Sometimes, you just need outside help to see the forest through the trees.

If you’re struggling with overworked and burnt out staff, consider seeking expert help. Laurie Lawless has first-hand experience with the unique challenges of sheltering work. After 16 years in the field, Laurie founded Shelter Behavior Integrations to help shelters to find accessible and practical ways to put behavioral and mental health first. Check out the SBI website to learn about Laurie’s services, access her online resources, and read more about animal shelter solutions.

Four Simple Ways to Support Animal Shelter Staff & Volunteer Welfare