Review of Career Development, Recruitment & Promotions in the UN/DPKO System
UNMISS MDP May 2015 cohort /
PROJECT PROPOSAL TEAM ‘C’
Team Members – TEAM ‘C’
JamshedKazi
GhandiShukryKataw
AssamisCampaore
Abdul-Kasim Adam
Bernard Brima
Victor Briggs
09/09/2015

Review of Career Development, Recruitment & Promotions in the
UN/DPKO System

C-TEAM PROJECT PROPOSAL (MDP May 2015 – Cohort)

  1. OBJECTIVES: The project proposal reviews the career development opportunities for UN DPKO staff members. It identifies steps to ensure equality and transparency in recruitment / promotions / within grade transfers and looks into enhancing mobility opportunities for staff members. Basically, it is another step towards implementing the ONE-UN policies to have similar / uniform policies for DPKO and Secretariat staff members and bring them in sync with the policies practised by the main UN Agencies, Funds and Programs.
  1. STAKEHOLDERS: The stakeholders in this project will be the Human Resources Department, Legal Affairs Unit, Conduct and Discipline Unit and mission Senior Management. In general all UN Staff members are stakeholders in this process through the Field Staff Unions who agreed to take the subject further with the UN Management.
  1. EFFECTS OF LACK OF OPPORTUNITIES ON UN STAFF: There is a general lack of opportunity in the current recruitment, promotion and mobility system of UN Secretariat, specifically DPKO and DPA. The jobs are considered non-career oriented but since this is no longer the case with the introduction of continuous appointments policy and the long standing history of PKOs which continue for years and decades altogether, there is a need to address these issues as some of the effects on UN staff are non-productive and demotivating as follows which lead to low efficiencies.

Lack of motivation/morale.

Stagnation in one duty station for long period.

Stereo-typing

Financial implications

Low Performance

  1. IMPROVEMENTS IN THE RECRUITMENT / PROMOTION SYSTEM: The current ‘Inspira’ based system, though an improvement, is no longer serving the purpose for which it was introduced, i.e. transparency and equal opportunities for all UN staff. Being on the FCRB roster is generally a pre-requisite to being eligible to apply for most of the UN job openings on Inspira. However, after application and clearance by HR, it is still up to the Program Manager to select any applicant without any formal system or competition and it is solely the discretion of Program Manager. This may lead to lack of transparency and opportunity for staff members and networking proves to be the sole consideration for recruitment and promotions. In order to bring transparency and open competition to the system, it is proposed to introduce a point-based system similar to the one used for ‘Continuing Appointments’ in the UN system. It would involve having points for Education, Experience, E-Performance ratings and the hardship of duty station served giving some advantage to those serving at hardship duty stations. In such a point based system, the candidates should be rated and the top three picked up for a selection process / formal interview giving competitive edge and transparency to the process and reducing the ‘discretionary’ powers of the Program Managers giving equal opportunities to all. The Team appreciates and supports the “Gender Equality” in the recruitment system, yet the concern of giving priority to female candidates from other UN Agencies over internal candidates was raised amongst staff members, especially that those Agencies do not offer the same consideration to Secretariat female staff members.
  1. MORE TRANSPARENCY IN THE FCRB SYSTEM: There have been reports regarding lack of transparency on the candidates selected for qualification and clearance in the FCRB process. Essentially, the candidates who do not qualify are not informed at what stage they failed to qualify and/or what criteria were used, which leads to doubts in their minds. Therefore, more transparency is needed during and after the process to keep all candidates informed at the various stages. For example, in Aviation Section, there have been many complaints on the criteria prevailing for selecting candidates to be sent the written examinations. After candidates apply for a generic job opening, candidates are not explained the criteria used for short-listing and sending the test. In Aviation Section, many staff members are ‘stuck’ on their initial positions as they never got the chance to sit for the written examinations. Many complaints have been made regarding the FCRB clearance process at both P as well as FS-levels and more transparency is needed.
  1. IMPROVEMENT IN THE MOBILITY SYSTEM: The current system in DPKO discourages mobility. There is no horizontal mobility system and the two mobility schemes introduced have completely failed as they were on VOLUNTARY BASIS instead of COMPULSORY. Staff members can only move once they apply and get selected for another job and lack of transparency in recruitment system does not provide equal opportunities to all staff. Well connected and those staff who do good networking move more regularly than others , getting incentives of ‘mobility’ and ‘assignment benefits’ while others stagnate for years and years without any opportunity. This leads to stagnation, lack of motivation and increased mistrust in the system. The non-voluntary nature of mobility make the mobility schemes fail as those at family duty stations and HQ have no motivation to move, while due to lack of job security due lack of transparency in recruitment and lack of mobility staff members do not want to move to downsizing missions. This causes a complete lack of mobility and staff may be able to move only within the same mission, which means the organisation still pays the various entitlements without obtaining maximum benefits.

The mobility system can be improved by using the good practices used by some of the major UN Agency, Funds and Programs like UNHCR, WFP, UNDP, UNICEF, UNDSS etc. For example, in UNDSS/UNDP contracts, mobility is compulsory after 3 years at non-family and 4 years at family duty stations. Staff members are asked to give three choices of available duty stations and then adjusted according to the vacancies and choices provided. For the DPKO system, it can be started with those staff members having spent 4-5 years at the same location to rotate compulsorily to other UN offices / missions. Making mobility compulsory will provide rotation to staff and ensure equality and transparency as well as one-UN for all staff. Furthermore, horizontal mobility would be automatic and would provide more job security and diversify the experience of the UN staff members who would no longer have to apply for jobs at the same level, which is currently the practice in DPKO/UN Secretariat, unlike the UN AFPs.

  1. THE WAY FORWARD: The proposal has been finalized with inputs from all concerned. This proposal would be presented at the final MDP meeting for the cohort on 09 September 2015. Thereafter, with the blessing of FSU, advocacy would be done at all duty stations in UNMISS through Field Staff Union and after obtaining sufficient buy-in and signatures, the proposal would be submitted to FSU Presidency for submission to OHRM/FPD. The proposal would then have to be constantly followed up and advocacy continued at all levels until possible implementation.

PROPOSAL FOR MOBILITY OF DPKO STAFF

MANAGED REASSIGNMENT PROGRAM

  1. The staff members holding fixed term and continuing appointments would be eligible for this program.
  1. The staff members will be reassigned laterally at their same level and functions in this managed reassignment program.
  1. The staff members due for programmedreassignment would be three years at non-family duty stations and four years at family duty stations
  1. A compendium of available vacant positions in each occupational group including posts expected to be available in near future due to scheduled reassignments, retirements or other separation actions would be announced twice a year..
  1. Staff members eligible for rotation must apply for three different posts listed in the Compendium, indicating their order of preference. However, they may not apply to their current post or to any other post within their country of assignment. They may ask for an extension of their current assignment by one year.
  1. The special language requirements (if any) of specific posts would be listed in the Compendium and should be kept in mind while filling out the application form. The applicants must write briefly in the application form why they are applying to a specific post or what makes them suitable for the positions on their preference list while attaching their updated PHP from inspira.
  1. OHRM/FPD will make every possible effort to reassign staff members to one of the posts / locations indicated in the application form. However, there is no guarantee that the expectations of all staff members would be met. Once a decision of reassignment is made, the staff members are expected to take up their assignments within the 60 days deadline.

PROPOSAL FOR IMPROVING STAFF RECRUITMENT SYSTEM

References:

  1. Administrative instruction – Staff selection system (ST/AI/2010/3) dated 21 April 2010.
  2. Standard Operating Procedure – Staff Selection System for Peacekeeping Operations and Special Political Missions dated 01 May 2012.
  3. Administrative instruction – Administration of continuing appointments (ST/AI/2012/3) dated 14 August 2012.

Improvement in the Inspira Staff Recruitment System

  1. The current Inspira-based staff recruitment system leaves a lot to be desired in terms of transparency and merit-based selection.
  2. The system still provides a lot of discretion to the program managers in staff selections especially in Recruit from Roster positions where there is an extremely large number of ‘rostered’ and ‘screened’ applicants.
  3. The program manager is not fully accountable why a particular candidate was selected from the rostered and screened candidates and may do so without following any selection process or without registering detailed reasons.
  4. This makes the system lacking transparency and merit, blocks the promotions of candidates as well as making horizontal mobility extremely difficult.
  5. The system can be made more transparent, fair and equitable to all the candidates by introducing a point-based system similar to the one used by the UN Secretariat and OHRM for deciding about continuing appointments.
  6. Such a system will reduce the discretionary powers of the Program Managers considerably and will encourage performance based and merit based selections.
  7. The system is simple as all the rostered and screened candidates would be allotted points as per the attached table.
  8. The topmost three candidates would then be eligible to be considered for selection for the announced position. In case of Job Openings having multiple posts, the same ratio of three candidates per post to be adopted.
  9. The internal candidates would be given first preference in this point based system and external candidates only to be considered if suitable rostered and screened internal candidates are not available.
  10. This point based system will encourage mobility amongst staff members as well as encourage them to serve at non-family hardship duty station. This would also ensure a balanced rotation between HQ duty stations and Field missions due to the competitive point system.
  11. The point based system and allocation of points would be done similar to the practice followed for continuing appointments as per the attached table.
  1. Performance rating for the past four years
  • Frequently exceeds expectations - 7 points for each year
  • Successfully meets expectations- 5 points for each year
  1. Service of each completed year at duty stations by hardship rating
  • Category E duty stations- 7 points
  • Category D duty stations- 5 points
  • Category C duty stations- 3 points
  • Categories A and B duty stations- 1 point
  1. Service of each completed year at family/non-family duty stations
  • Non-family duty stations- 2 points
  • Family duty stations- 1 point
  1. Mobility for at least one continuous year at duty station
  • Geographic mobility - 3 points per duty station
  • Functional mobility- 2 points per function
  1. Proficiency in official language of the United Nations other than one’s mother tongue
  • Each language- 2 points
  1. Each year of service in current grade
  • 1 point for each completed year
  1. Any training courses listed in the Job Opening
  • Mandatory training course- 5 points
  • Training courses considered as advantage – 2 points

Note: The proposed system was used in two of the recruitments for FS-6 level within the Security Section, as a test case. It was found that using such system increased the transparency for selection and those not selected did not criticize the selection process and found out where they needed to improve. This led to more trust building and lesser number of complaints.

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