Benefits
In addition to making a positive difference in the lives of people facing crisis or hardship, as a Salvos employee, you gain access to a range of benefits and opportunities that deliver real and meaningful value towards your professional and personal growth.
Work-life balance
At The Salvation Army, we value an inclusive work environment. We want everyone to feel valued, supported, and fulfilled.
We have launched the Flexible Work Playbook for our employees. To enable flexible work, and a balance in our work and personal commitments, we offer:
- Hybrid working conditions (some days you’ll be in the office and others at home)
- Flexible work options: Provision to alter your start and finish times, job share, part time work options and accrued day off (ADO) or rostered day off (RDO) options
- Paid parental leave: 12-week offering for the primary carer, and two weeks for the secondary carer
- Purchase leave: Increase your leave up to eight weeks per year using ‘purchased leave’, an optional leave arrangement that allows employees to defer an entitlement for salary in return for additional annual leave (amount of the deferred salary dependent upon the number of weeks purchased)
Conditions and qualification periods apply to some options.
Snapshot of The Salvation Army workforce – Australia Territory
There are nearly 31,000 employees, officers and volunteers behind our strong workforce. See the breakdown of employees, officers and volunteers per state and territory.
Data from 2023/24.
Employees 3014
Officers 516
Volunteers 5755
Total 9285
Employees 3122
Officers 464
Volunteers 5189
Total 8775
Employees 1525
Officers 317
Volunteers 4129
Total 5971
Employees 792
Officers 110
Volunteers 2274
Total 3176
Employees 623
Officers 126
Volunteers 2145
Total 2894
Employees 364
Officers 31
Volunteers 648
Total 1043
Employees 321
Officers 32
Volunteers 268
Total 621
Employees 138
Officers 14
Volunteers 49
Total 201
Upskilling and advancement
The Salvation Army supports its people — paid staff and volunteers (where applicable) — to acquire insights, skills and qualifications which will help not only further the work of The Salvation Army, but also develop individuals in their professional capacity.
As an organisation with over 9500 employees that is the largest providers of social services in Australia, your career journey with the Salvos is full of opportunities.
Internal mobility represents over 40 per cent of our annual hires, with new opportunities actively promoted for transparency and equity of applications.
Our paid employment opportunities span industries such as:
- Healthcare and social assistance services (alcohol and other drugs, family and domestic violence, homelessness, community housing, youth and community services, emergency services and disaster relief, aged care, employment services, chaplaincy and more)
- Corporate functions - financial, marketing and communication, information and communication technology, human resources, fundraising, governance and risk, enterprise projects, education and training
- Administrative and support services
- Food services
- Transport and logistics
- Retail trade
- Property and real estate
Salary packaging
The Salvation Army offers competitive remuneration that ensure workers feel rewarded for the incredible work they do.
As a not-for-profit charitable organisation, we offer eligible employees the opportunity to package a range of expenses such as rent, mortgage, utilities, clothing, and entertainment, which reduces your tax and increases your take-home pay.
These benefits could include a combination of the following:
- General living expenses ($15,900 per FBT year)
- Meal and entertainment benefit ($2,650 per FBT year)
- Remote area housing benefit ($31,800 per FBT year)
- Relocation benefit ($5,000)
- Novated leasing: Motor vehicle leasing, insurance, maintenance, running costs and servicing.
Conditions apply to some options.
Learn more about salary packaging
For charity and not-for-profit employees
Novated leasing
Meals and entertainment
Remote area housing
For more information on salary packaging, visit SalaryPackagingPLUS
Health and wellbeing
The health and wellbeing of our staff is crucial at The Salvation Army. We offer resources to help you look after yourself — physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially — by offering a range of perks, which include (but not limited to):
- Fitness Passport
- Discounted access to over 350 gyms, pools and leisure centre nationally
- Unlimited visits seven days a week
- Membership options that cater to your entire family
- Up to 50 per cent off traditional membership prices
- Salvos Engage
- Our online community that helps our staff build healthy habits, join wellness challenges, explore spirituality, and get social
- Health insurance discount — Enjoy corporate rates when signing up
- Up to 10 days of family and domestic violence leave, and support
- Financial counselling services — free and confidential
- Employee Assistance Program — free confidential counselling services available to all volunteers and paid staff
- Soul Space — Salvos resource for staff that features daily reflections and spiritual devotion
- In-house chaplains
Conditions and qualification periods apply to some options.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander — specific benefits
At The Salvation Army, we have a long history of working alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We are committed to reconciliation. We are working to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representation in our workforce. We also aim to provide culturally sensitive services to peoples and communities across Australia.
The Salvation Army has developed some specialised resources for workers who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.
- The Burra Burra Network — a pastoral care network that is open to membership and optional.
- Cultural Competency and Capability Framework — a toolkit which contains key information and resources for all regarding cultural learning, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander engagement, recruitment and retention and faith resources.
- Message Stick — a quarterly newsletter from the Territorial Indigenous team which provides information and updates to personnel who are interested in current and upcoming activities regarding our work and engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
- Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) — a structured approach to advance reconciliation, and is a commitment to our engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and our reconciliation initiatives.
- RAP merchandise — a selection of merchandise that have been designed in collaboration with our General Manager Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander, and only available for staff to purchase and wear.
- Sorry Business and Ceremonial Leave — an employee who is required by their Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander tradition to be absent from work for ceremonial purposes is entitled to up to ten working days’ unpaid leave in any year.