At Hireup, we're building a community for people with disability to control their own supports. We know that any successful community is built on a foundation of trust, so we've created this code of conduct to enable you to understand how you can participate positively in our community.

This code of conduct sets out your responsibilities as a home care and support worker on Hireup and will cover you whenever you're participating in the Hireup community, whether you're messaging someone on the Hireup platform, working a shift or interacting with the Hireup team.

The Hireup Principles

Everything that happens within the Hireup community is underpinned by our core principles. These principles provide us with a framework to engage with each other. This is an evolving document—we're constantly rethinking our approach as we learn from the community. But these four principles are the heart of what we've learnt so far, and we're always working to make sure they're enforced.

Choice and Control

We believe that people with disability should have total choice and control over their supports. We've designed the Hireup model to ensure that people with disability decide who they work with, when they want their bookings to happen and how they would like their support delivered.

Direction

You must respect the instructions, directions and decisions of both the person you are supporting, their family or account manager and the Hireup team (except in cases that it is unsafe or illegal to do so).

You must make yourself familiar with the support plan of the person you are supporting which is located on their Hireup profile and any other support or training documents that will help you deliver safe support. You must be responsive to feedback and training provided to you by the person you are supporting.

Individualised Support

You should endeavour to provide support that is individualised and is supporting the people you are working with to achieve their individual goals. You can do this by asking lots of questions to understand the preferences of the people you support so that their individual choices and requirements are guiding your work.

You should build strong relationships with the people you are supporting while always being mindful of professional boundaries.

Professionalism

You must only provide support that you are skilled and qualified to safely deliver. You must understand that you are acting as a support worker with Hireup. You must only work within the scope of your role as set out in the job description. You must always comply with Hireup's standards, statements and procedures while using the Hireup platform and engaging with the people you support, the Hireup community and the Hireup team.

You must be punctual and reliable and act within the Hireup cancellation statement at all times. You must refrain from possessing or using drugs or alcohol when working with Hireup.

Health and Wellbeing

There's no doubt that support work is incredibly rewarding, but it can also be mentally and physically challenging sometimes. Happy, satisfied workers provide the best support, so think about other things going on in your life and be aware of fatigue and exhaustion. Like lots of things, quality is better than quantity when it comes to support work.

Dignity of Risk

Dignity of risk is about respecting the rights of people with disability to assess the risks associated with their decisions and actions.

Enabling Risk

As a support worker, you must enable risk-based decision making for the people you are supporting. It is your responsibility to find the balance between respecting someone's right to make decisions about their own life and ensuring they are safe.

Assessing Risk

You should also feel empowered to make risk-based decisions for yourself; this means assessing the risks and making decisions about whether to complete certain work during a shift or undertaking any task at the request of Hireup or the person you are supporting.

Working Safely

You have responsibilities to ensure that the support you deliver is safe, appropriate and of the highest quality.

Zero tolerance for abuse and neglect

Hireup has a zero tolerance policy to abuse, neglect, negligence and violence against people with disability. This means you must prevent and respond to all forms of violence against, and exploitation, neglect and abuse of people with disability. You must report any concerns of abuse or neglect to Hireup as soon as you are aware of them.

You must not assault, harass or intimidate any member of our community, or deliberately or negligently expose any other member of our community to a risk of physical, psychological or other harm.

Security and Privacy

You must maintain the confidentiality and privacy of the personal information of the people you are supporting and other members of the Hireup community. This means you must not share information about the people you are supporting or any other member of the Hireup community with anyone else. Further you must keep your Hireup account password secret and not provide anyone else access to your Hireup account.

If you become aware of a potential or actual privacy or confidentiality breach by you or anyone else in the Hireup community, you must report it to Hireup immediately.

Inclusion

You should contribute positively to an environment that is free from discrimination, bullying and harassment, including on the basis of disability, race, age, sex, gender identity, religion, political or other opinion or affiliation, or criminal record.

Authenticity

You must not use the Hireup platform or communicate with Hireup or any member of our community for a purpose which is not related to a potential or actual shift.

You must only complete shifts that are booked through the Hireup platform. Shifts worked 'offline' from the Hireup platform will not be covered by our insurance or payroll.

You must not provide any information that is incorrect, misleading or deceptive on your Hireup profile or in any communications you have with Hireup or any member of our community. You also must not include any offensive, defamatory, derogatory or inappropriate material in your Hireup profile or in any communications you have with Hireup or any member of our community.

Reporting

You must acknowledge that as a support worker you are a mandatory reporter. You are required to report situations where you believe that there is a significant risk of harm to the person you are supporting, this includes physical harm, sexual harm, emotional or psychological harm, financial abuse, neglect or exposure to domestic violence.

You also have a responsibility to report any issues or incidents that occur during or in relation to a shift to Hireup through our 24-hour online reporting tool, as soon as possible or at the very least within 1 day of the incident occurring.

You must work transparently and honestly with Hireup to resolve any complaints, issues or incidents. You are accountable for your performance and behaviour while working with the people you support and Hireup.

Positive Communication

Communication is one of the strongest tools we have to build strong working relationships. Words can be powerful in shaping how we think and feel about ourselves and each other.

Respectful conversations

Disability is often talked about with sweeping assumptions, which doesn't help us accurately or positively represent the variety and diversity of disability. We expect you to engage in respectful, nuanced and open-minded conversations within and outside our community and to be aware of the words and language you use.

Effective communication

You will maximise your work opportunities with Hireup by engaging in open, effective and timely communication with people seeking support, the Hireup community and the Hireup team.

Other Responsibilities

The Hireup principles set out above should guide how you work with Hireup and clarify our expectations for our support workers. It is also important to understand that there is a broader ecosystem in our sector of regulations, standards and procedures that we all need to comply with. We've set these out generally below. You must make sure you are aware of and understand how these regulations, standards and procedures apply to your work with Hireup.

Standards, policy statements and procedures

Hireup has a set of quality standards, policy statements and procedures to guide our community. As a support worker you must ensure that you understand your responsibilities under these documents and comply with them.

NDIS Worker Code of Conduct

As a Hireup support worker, you will often be supporting participants of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission has set out an NDIS code of conduct that applies to anyone involved in delivering support to people with disability. The NDIS code of conduct imposes civil penalties on people who fail to follow it, so we're committed to helping you understand your role in bringing the code to life. The code asks that you:

1. act with respect for individual rights to freedom of expression, self-determination and decision-making in accordance with applicable laws and conventions;
2. respect the privacy of people with disability;
3. provide supports and services in a safe and competent manner, with care and skill;
4. act with integrity, honesty and transparency;
5. promptly take steps to raise and act on concerns about matters that may impact the quality and safety of supports and services provided to people with disability;
6. take all reasonable steps to prevent and respond to all forms of violence against, and exploitation, neglect and abuse of, people with disability; and
7. take all reasonable steps to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct.

You can access the laws and regulations managed by the Commission here.

Also, if you're based in Victoria, there's an additional Code of Conduct for disability service workers.

As a registered provider of supports in Victoria, Hireup and its support workers also have to follow the Victorian Code of Conduct for support workers. The code has five obligations for workers, which you can read here.