THE ROLE OF HR AT INTERNATIONAL AID

The Case

International Aid is a charity that operates as an NGO (non-government organization)

providing aid in the form of development projects in Third World countries, especially in
Africa. The projects may be educational, advice on healthcare, agricultural development or
constructional, e.g., schools or wells. They are funded by international organizations such as
the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the UK Government, but it is also
necessary for International Aid to raise funds itself to finance its headquarters operations
and some projects in their early stages. Projects are run by a leader from International Aid
with other International Aid specialists in the larger projects, although maximum use is
made of local nationals as members of the team. Currently there are 96 projects in 10
African countries and two in a South American country. The total number of International
Aid staff working overseas is about 350. The headquarters of International Aid is in
Cambridge and employs about 200 staff in operations development and management,
marketing and fundraising, public affairs, finance and personnel management.
International Aid has run into some difficulties in recent years. It has had problems in raising
sufficient funds itself and it has been more difficult to get funding from the international
organizations and the UK Government. It has also been criticized for having too high an
expense ratio arising from inadequate financial control and, possibly, over-staffing.
Consequently, a new chair of trustees has been appointed and about half the other trustees
have been replaced, with a heavier emphasis on business and management expertise. The
Chief Executive of International Aid took early retirement and a new one was appointed. He
was previously the Group HR Director of a large property development firm with extensive
overseas interests and his earlier career had been in financial management.
The new Chief Executive was instructed by the Trustees to take a very hard look at the
existing organization structure and the capabilities of the directors of each of the major
functions and report back with his proposals in three months’ time. The present organization
was:
 Chief Executive

Director of Director of Director of Director of Director of

International Operational Fundraising and Finance Administration
Operations Planning Public Affairs

International Head of Financial Head of IT

project directors Fundraising Accountant

Head of Public Head of

Affairs Personnel

Head of
Administrative
Services

The Chief Executive summarized his survey of the organization as follows:

● The Director of International Operations was a very efficient manager but had
neglected her responsibilities for ensuring that overseas staff were properly selected,
briefed and trained, possibly because in an ill-defined way the Director of Operational
Planning was involved in staffing – the distinction between the two roles was unclear,
which led to confusion and overlap.
● The Director of Finance was technically good but had allowed the department to be
overstaffed and needed the support of a qualified management accountant rather
than an unqualified accounting administrator who was a glorified clerk.
● The Director of Fundraising and Public Affairs did not have enough to do and was in
any case hampered by an inadequate Head of Fundraising.
● The Head of Public Affairs was good at her job but was given little scope by her
Director who was essentially a fundraiser. The result was that the organization was
not presenting itself adequately to the Government and the international funding
organizations or the public at large.
 ● The Director of Administration did not have enough to do to justify his position and
the administrative side of his department was grossly over-staffed; the Head of IT and
Head of Personnel were quite capable of carrying out their roles without him.
● The Head of IT was effective and could contribute much more given better
leadership.
● The Personnel Manager was perfectly adequate in her primarily administrative role
but was given no scope or encouragement to contribute more, although it was
unlikely that even given that scope she could do so.
● The quality of some overseas staff was inadequate, which has led to questions from
funders about the ability of International Aid to deliver on its project obligations.
● The rate of turnover of overseas staff was far too high; it seemed that they were
inadequately trained or prepared for their duties (the responsibility, oddly enough of
the Director of Operational Planning).
To deal with these problems the Chief Executive proposed the following new organization to
the Trustees (only posts affected by the reorganization are shown):

Chief Executive

Director of Director of Director of Director of Director of HR*

Operations Finance Fundraising Public Affairs

Head of Financial
Operations Accountant Head of HR
Planning* Services**

Management Head of
Accountant* Organizational
Learning*

Head of IT

Head of
Administrative
Services

* new post
 ** previously Head of Personnel
The reaction of the Trustees to this proposal was on the whole favourable. They grumbled
that there seemed to be a lot of new posts, but the Chief Executive made a persuasive
business case to the effect that they would provide added value. They also questioned the
creation of a Director of HR responsible to the Chief Executive. A number of Trustees
objected strongly to the term ‘human resources’ on the grounds that it was a demeaning
concept that treated people as mere resources to be exploited by the organization. Others
asked if this post was significant enough to justify its position as a member of the senior
management team, while others wondered what a Head of Organizational Learning was
when he or she was at home.
The Chief Executive was therefore asked to report back to the Trustees with a further
justification for this proposal. They wanted to know what added value would be provided by it,
i.e., what, specifically, an HR function would contribute.

The Task

Prepare this justification for the Trustees.