Senior Advisor Gender Equity and Diversity What Is GED?

GED Strategy

2010 – 2015

August 15th, 2010

Senior Advisor – Gender Equity and Diversity
What is GED?

Gender Equity and Diversity (GED) embodies CARE’s commitment to the organizational imperative of valuing, respecting and fully benefiting from each individual’s unique qualities and abilities in order to fulfill and strengthen our vision and mission. In fact, our success in advancing quality programming depends on our ability to harness and apply the skills and abilities of our staff within an environment of respect, trust, and value for the contribution of all. Understanding and appreciating GED internally is a process to create these conditions.

To advance gender equity, CARE affirms the commitment that all people carry inherently equal dignity and rights, therefore, CARE should always affirm and uphold the equal rights, and opportunities of men and women. Furthermore, each person, by virtue of her or his particular character and context, has a unique identity and combination of aspirations and abilities. Therefore, CARE must strive to understand how the particular conditions of each individual or social group shape their ability to excel, and create tailored opportunities for each to thrive.

By advancing diversity, CARE seeks to ensure that, collectively, CARE’s partners and staff at all levels embody the richness of diversity found in the socioeconomic and cultural environments in which we work. CARE conceptualizes diversity in the broadest sense, going beyond regular classifications of gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability, among others, to also include diversity of perspectives that uphold CARE’s core values, and to emphasize the value of creating and maintaining a work environment that promotes diversity.

Realizing our vision and upholding our mission and core values will require staff to apply GED standards to our organizational behavior that support and reaffirm the equal dignity and rights of all.

Business Rationale

GED is important to CARE because it is reflective of who we are, what we do, where we work, and our vision for the future. Our business rationale for GED is as follows:

·  As CARE further emphasizes its focus on women’s empowerment in our programs, it is critical that we practice similar principles in house, and ensure that staff understand the importance of power relations as they relate to gender.

·  In order to enhance and advance our relief and development work, we need a variety of perspectives to inform relevant and responsible choices about how programs are designed, and how projects are managed and implemented.

·  To increase capacity within the communities in which CARE works, we need to build collaborative relationships and partnerships amongst people with a multiplicity of similarities and differences.

·  CARE’s mission calls for affirming the dignity and worth of all people. This includes, but is not limited to, combating discrimination in all its forms.

·  CARE’s successful future is dependent upon our ability to learn and innovate. Our differences in knowledge, approach, and perspective are the source and spring of innovation and learning.

·  CARE promotes gender equity and diversity because we believe it is the right thing to do and it allows us to lead internally with our staff and externally in our work with program participants by upholding CARE’s core values of Respect, Integrity, Commitment, and Excellence.

Our Vision for 2015

CARE will be an organization where diverse people flourish; where we welcome, embrace and enrich the gender equity and diversity of our staff whose perspectives and experiences will allow us to achieve excellence in our work to eliminate global poverty and social injustice.

We will achieve this vision by:

·  Building on learning from the past

·  Using our Framework for Action

·  Providing coherent leadership and support on GED across the organization

·  Communicating clearly inside and outside the organization

Background and learning

1998 CARE USA marked the genesis of GED by announcing its GED Initiative with much enthusiasm and support from executive leadership. Over the years, GED’s progress was reflected within CARE USA’s programmatic and internal work in Country Offices and Headquarters. Progress was made in areas affecting project and program participants and staff in areas such as understanding ethnic differences, exposing religious biases, correcting gender inequities, improving representation and participation of marginalized groups, women, and underrepresented groups, building awareness among staff through formal and informal learning, and increasing the number of women and underrepresented groups at CARE. For example, GED experienced many successes such as: women in Country Offices going beyond their prescribed gender roles for example to join the cadre of drivers; instances of national staff being promoted to prominent decision making positions; staff working in conflict countries holding dialogues across ethnic lines; and the adoption of a CARE International (CI) Gender Policy and policy on the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA). Country Offices also carried out GAP analyses (or gender audits) and developed specific plans to improve representation, trust, learning and accountability; systems of governance internally were improved to ensure voice and participation of a diversity of staff in senior management and decision making teams. Organizational development and learning took place more systematically, CARE began to offer leadership and management training including Leading with Impact, CARE People Management Program and specific courses were also designed to improved GED awareness (The GED series). Successful programs to increase gender equity and diversity have targeted national and female staff development and ensured systematic analysis of trends and use of the data for planning; they have provided sustained training in GED in recognition of relatively high turnover at different levels within the organization.

During the past few years a lull fell upon GED. This has provided us with a good opportunity to learn from our experience. Our own work and the literature shows that progress is made when there is high executive and senior leadership support backed up with dedicated GED human and financial resources and strong communication on GED activities within our Country Offices and Headquarters. CARE’s work also shows that success is most likely when there is strong integration between CARE’s internal GED work and its programming and external marketing in GED, and a strong sense of the meaning and relevance of GED in CARE.

In short, success depends upon coherence, strong leadership and management, good communication; and systems of accountability that inform decision making and that are inclusive and build upon our values;

This strategy is an expression of a rededication and renewal of excitement around GED. The review of our GED work reinforced our framework for action and also identified some critical priority areas for work within them, these are outlined below.

A framework for action: Priority Strategies

CARE has used this framework for action since the early 2000’s. It has a proven track record and is well known and understood throughout the organization. This strategy therefore reaffirms the framework. It is important to note that four areas of strategic importance that cut across the framework have been identified, they are:

Ø  Coherence (between our marketing, our program and our organization);

Ø  Leadership

Ø  Communication

Ø  Information

These areas of focus are highlighted in the accompanying action plan.

1. Representation: The ability of an organization to attract and retain qualified and committed staff representing different backgrounds, gender, ethnicity, age groups and experiences; and staff who offer different perspectives, and opinions in order to collectively foster relationships that contribute towards the organization’s effectiveness. Representation is based on the recognition that discrimination is wrong.The focus here is on equal opportunity, fair treatment, recruitment, and compliance with contextually relevant Equal Employment Opportunity requirements. Advancing representation implies not only a focus on demographic patterns, but works toward ensuring that all staff have an opportunity to contribute to a variety of ideas for effective decision-making and innovation.

Representation priorities for 2010-2015:

·  Specific focus areas based on data analysis – e.g. leadership at CO and regional levels; Africa and Asia focus for increasing female representation, etc.

·  Affirmative action and Code of Ethics; Proactive attention to under-represented groups.

·  Alignment of work place policies and practices to good industry practice in GED

·  Improving representation of vendor/consultants

·  Recruitment

·  Orientation, on-boarding and exit interviews

·  Performance management

·  Talent management

2. Trust: The quality of relationships within CARE. In order for gender equity and diversity to contribute to effective decision-making and innovation, relationships built upon trust must exist, and systems and structures that support trust building must be available.

Trust Priorities for 2010-2015:

·  Employee Engagement, Gap analyses and Climate Surveys (BSQ etc)

·  Communication – in main CARE languages

·  Staff well-being

·  Internal leadership

·  Accountability systems that are responsive to the voice of staff

3. Learning: The ability and willingness of CARE staff to learn from each other, to respect, value, and fully capitalize on diverse people, perspectives and new knowledge and innovation

Learning Priorities for 2010 - 2015:

·  Orientation and on-boarding

·  Performance Management

·  Improved, sustained and integrated formal training – in partnership with others and meeting identified learning needs (whether programmatic or organizational)

·  Targeted coaching and mentoring programs

·  Greater alignment between programmatic priorities and staff knowledge and skills.

4. Accountability: The organization’s ability to accomplish and sustain its commitments. In order for progress to be made in advancing representation, trust, and learning, we need strong and vital systems to hold staff at all levels accountable for progress. Leadership support and accountability at all levels is integral to this process.

Accountability Priorities for 2010 – 2015

·  Leadership – building strong and consistent leadership around GED and ensuring that leaders seek to use clear accountability mechanisms for change.

·  Policy review and implementation

·  Integrated (program and organizational) data tracking and use (including Ubora) in decision making and prioritization

·  Programmatic and Organizational Planning and Reporting systems

·  Rewarding (within our performance management and in other ways) positive action and change

·  Performance management and evaluation

·  Improved communication

Making it happen

This strategy depends on all of us particularly the management lines in CARE; after all our stand on issues and the decisions we make often give implicit ethical and value based messages around GED. The strategy has been pulled together and will be tracked by the Senior Advisor for GED within the Global Support Services. As mentioned above, coherence and communication are key and one of the core roles of the Senior Advisor will be to ensure that different parts of the organization are prioritizing and working together to ensure results.

As we move into Fiscal Year 2011, there is evidence of a high level of interest and support. 5 out of 6 regions have an explicit objective related to improving representation of staff (particularly at senior levels); 50% of (CARE US) CO AOPs reviewed (excluding LAC and SAR) have explicit objectives, the majority relate to representation but cut across the four areas of the framework for action. This interest should be increased and sustained at high levels. It will be important to ensure that this strategy happens in support of regional and CO aspirations, this will mean working closely with leadership in the regions and also with regional and CO HR staff.

CARE International is also taking a strong lead on this work, the CI Gender Network is actively following up on the implementation of the CI Gender Policy and has developed useful guidance for action planning and measurement. This strategy will work within this broader context and use the best tools and support from the network.

Within CARE US HQ, there is a high level of energy and commitment to the work, it will be particularly important to build support and sponsorship from the Executive Management Team members. The Senior Advisor will work very closely with the Director, Gender Unit (and her team) in Program Quality and Impact. There will also be a strong and explicit linkage particularly with all parts of the Human Resources Unit. Finally, the role of internal communications will be critical to ensure clear and coherent messaging around the work.

Measuring success

One of the simplest ways to measure success is by quantitative methods. Representation lends itself to such methods and we are using them in our Ubora system (particularly for CARE US and International positions); it will need improvement and expansion if we are to understand the situation globally.

Measuring the more qualitative elements of the framework can be more challenging – for example, diversity of perspectives in decision making or the quality of participation, increased and sustained learning and trust. It is not however impossible; there are both proxy indicators and qualitative surveys that provide information in relation to gender, diversity, seniority, division/department, etc; these might include:

·  Recruitment data (diversity applicants, long lists, short lists, successful candidates)

·  Turnover and reasons for leaving (from exit interviews)

·  Staff well being – sick leave, workload information (PAR), mental health

·  Talent Management – assessments and talent development

·  Performance Management – objectives and development and evaluation

·  Employee Engagement Survey/Climate Survey or GAP analysis data

·  Strategic plans; AOPs and reviews

Measure of success:

Representation:

1.  Increase in the diversity (by gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability, among others) of staff in critical parts (defined by data indicating low levels of diversity) of the organization.

2.  Increased representation and active participation (by gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability, among others) in decision making bodies

3.  Reduced turnover

Trust:

4.  Improved organizational climate including trust and voice as evidenced in surveys and GAP analysis/Gender Audits

5.  Improved and systematic communication relating to GED internally

6.  Issues raised and addressed by leadership (e.g. in EES)