SHRM 15

HR and the Voluntary Sector

NGO Definition
• The World Bank defines NGOs as "private organizations that pursue
activities to relieve suffering, promote the interests of the poor, protect
the environment, provide basic social services, or undertake community
development".
• In wider usage, the term NGO can be applied to any non-profit
organization which is independent from government. NGOs are typically
value-based organizations which depend, in whole or in part, on
charitable donations and voluntary service.
• Although the NGO sector has become increasingly professionalized over
the last two decades, principles of altruism and voluntarism remain
key defining characteristics
Categories
Two main categories of NGOs:
• Operational NGOs - whose primary purpose is the design and
implementation of development-related projects,
• Advocacy NGOs - whose primary purpose is to defend or promote a
specific cause and who seek to influence the policies and practices
• Operational NGOs is categorized into three main groups
• community-based organizations (CBOs) - which serve a specific population in a
narrow geographic area;
• national organizations - which operate in individual developing countries,
• international organizations - which are typically headquartered in developed
countries and carry out operations in more than one developing country.
Challenges
• Non-governmental organizations are facing a competing demand of
providing high-quality services in front of reduced funds.
• Good management contributes positively to use their resources
efficiently.
Issues related to Quality of Talent
• The first is the high joblessness rate which causes an incredibly high
number of under qualified employment searchers to stream
• The second is retaining highly skilled and qualified people and keeping
them motivated. Learning and development are central to both the
performance and development of employees.
• It can be beneficial for an organisation to offer employees equal and full
access to learning and development opportunities that are aligned to their
career development, as well as the skills and competencies required to meet
business performance and growth objectives.
Issues related to Management of talent
• Recruitment and Retention of Competent Staff
• Many of the local NGOs work with a project orientation focus which means there is low priority for investing in nurturing
human resource capacities and staff retention measures due to their short term nature of the projects.
• Some organizations are not able to have the right employees at the right time and place. When they recruit the staff they face
the challenge of retaining them to the end of the project phase as staff leave before the termination of the project.
• This dynamism experienced in project-oriented organizations is a great challenge as staff turnovers are often high and erratic
and this destabilizes programming and eventually the performance of the organization.
• Some of the geographical areas where the NGOs operate are inaccessible or remote and it becomes difficult to attract staff to
work in these sites and they are forced to rely on temporary staff or unqualified staff to fill the positions.
• Difficulties in Maintaining Balance between Employee and Organization
• It needs another challenge facing organizations is the alignment of employee expectations with the organization’s strategic
focus.
• Local NGOs constantly face the difficult task of trying to balance between employee concerns and organizational strategic and
financial goals.
• Employees perceived that their concerns and needs were not being addressed by the organizations and were overshadowed
by the organization’s need to please donors.
• Employees eventually lacked motivation to work towards fulfilling the organization’s objectives or core mission.
• There is also limited investment in people who have been around for long periods in the organization to counter the sense of
dissatisfaction and distancing from the vision.
Managing the Talent
• A crucial task for local NGO leadership is to evaluate the extent to which
organizational culture ensures the strategic integration and adoption of
human resource practices to make sure employee potential is harnessed and
developed for the benefit of both the individual and organization.
• Donor agencies and governments are an important part in the local NGOs
lifecycle as many organizations receive support from the two institutions to
undertake development at community level.
• There is need for donor and government agencies to become more sensitive
and pro-active in understanding the human resource challenges of partner
implementing organizations and offer more support to build capacity in HR
management in addition to providing funds and registration of the
organizations.
Managing the talent
• Skill Vs Will:
• Without the skill or the will it is a futile effort, as each developmental activity involves shaping of
behavior, hence a perfect blend of Skill & Will is a prerequisite for success.
• The success rate of sustainable change is largely dependent on the quality of front-line staff to transform
the lives of people we serve. It is critical to consider passion that drives individuals to give their best for
someone else’s good.
• It is essential to avoid hiring “warm bodies,” rather surround yourself with a great team by picking staff
who are smart, talented and driven employees who share your vision.
• Hiring positive, can-do employees helps create a culture that fosters an enabling environment in which
everyone participates.
• Desperate hiring often leads to difficult situations. At pre-selection stage reliance on scientific
recruitment practices like competency-based interviews, psychometric testing, role play, pointers from
social media, informal conversations etc. surely helps. In the post-selection scenario adequate capacity
building of staff and reigniting the passion that led them to this sector are definitely helpful.
• Strategic workforce plan helps to plan well so that up-skilling & re-skilling can be done wherever
possible.
Managing the talent
• Band Vs Brand:
• Another common challenge for this sector is the compensation offered.
• Some brands in this sector are able to attract good candi
• dates, however, do fail to absorb them as they do not have the salary band to afford them. Thus
the constant tussle between building talents Vs buying talents continues for effective talent
management.
• NGOs struggle in terms of availability of role-ready talent and in addition to that they struggle
with the affordability of such talents.
• This invariably makes good resources overly expensive for the sector and constantly keeps HR
leaders on their toes for effective retention measures.
• e need to be dynamic in bringing newness and deliver more on people-friendly policies like
flexi-work options, festival bonus, leaves, gender neutrality, recognition drives, professional
development focused quarterly conversations, internal growth opportunity etc. to name a few.
• This also ensures a higher level of satisfaction of staff as their contributions are valued.
Managing the Talent
• Budget Vs Funds:
• With the economic demographic changing quickly, especially over the last few years, the
perception of the world about poverty and wealth in India has impacted funding.
• With the reduction and shortening of tenure of the funds' flow, projects are getting closed early
making it difficult to retain staff. T
• The uncertainty of project extension that is contingent to the availability of funds often propels
staff to look out before the actual closure of projects and that affects the projected outcome and
impact.
• The challenge here is how to continue walking the journey together as sustainable development
does call for the substantially sustainable workforce.
• Another fallout of this problem is complying with the legal provisions.
• Funds crunch also practically cripples loyalty to a particular organization
• There are efforts around being innovative in staffing by bringing in volunteerism, internship and
resource sharing with/from other Corporates & NGOs. Transition counseling and outplacement
initiatives can quell the insecurity around project closures to a significant extent.
Managing the Talent
• Transactional Vs Strategic:
• It is time to shift gear and move to the strategic aspects of HR, being more
scientific, data-driven than following the traditional approach.
• It is critical for HR Practitioners to rise above as Business Partners to mitigate
challenges of skills shortages in a niche area and salary disparities with
imminent funding cut and design people friendly policies in spite of
constraints and government policies that hinder the success of any social
organization.
• The need of the hour is to have strategic staffing plan in place that includes
talent management and succession planning.
• Use of competency mapping and competency-based interviews as part of
recruitment tools can help an organization to proactively position well.
Summary

• Career in NGOs
• Leaders from the development sector will affirm that the supply of competent
people, ready to take a cut in respect of remuneration, for the sake of the cause, has
lessened rapidly in last few years.
• With the changing landscape and ever-changing expectation of the communities,
NGOs are now keen to employ highly skilled staff to help the organization function
at its best. And once we are past that stage, comparison walks in as a thief of joy.
• The challenge here is how passion feeds satisfaction as we invest, develop and
retain competent staff, how often and how we do development, enrichment focused
quarterly conversations as against annual performance process and how creative we
are in making our policies people friendly.
• However, all said and done we need to accept the fact that engagement cannot be
bought and thus let’s keep churning our thoughts.