Human Resources Best Management Practices

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This article was drawn from an article prepared for the NGO Handbook by Sandy Yu titled, "Human Resources Best Management Practices".


Best management of human resources entail fostering a dynamic learning environment where both the staff and management leaders are motivated to improve upon different programs as well as provide a system of accountability to outsiders. Bruce Britton, an international expert on organizational learning in NGOs, has worked extensively on these issues in 28 countries on three continents since he began as an organisational consultant and trainer in 1984. (Framework.org) He emphasizes that the leader must provide the motivation, opportunity, and means for employees to participate in the learning process. Accountability towards the people they represent is also crucial. Authors such as Dr. Jem Bendell, a leading expert in dealing with corporate and NGO responses to the challenges of globalization, points to the crucial need for management policies to maintain accountability towards the people they represent and to those their organizations affect. The difficulty lies in NGOs balancing between remaining accountable to the public it hopes to serve while remaining independent from pressure from government and donors. By building a nurturing learning environment and a system of accountability constitute solid management practices. This paper will expand upon the ideas of Britton and Bendell and will also be supplemented by real world cases and examples from several organizations.

Organizational Learning as a Means of Building Better Management Practices

Organizational learning is a term used by Britton to emphasize the need to foster a positive learning environment within the organization. He defines it as “the intentional use of collective and individual learning processes to continuously transform organisational behavior in a direction satisfying to its stakeholders.” (Britton) Organizational learning is important to NGOs because it can help increase organizational effectiveness, develop organizational capacity, help make the best use of limited resources, help strengthen partnerships, and create a healthy organization. By building up relationships among staff members and fostering a supportive learning environment, tangible gains will then be made in the workplace. “Everybody in an organization-is likely to be a source of useful knowledge and people will choose whether to share or withhold that knowledge.” (Britton) For this very reason, the leadership should find the motive or desire to foster a learning environment. This can be accomplished by prioritizing a rewarding system of feedback as well as recognizing employees who contribute new knowledge to the organization. The greater the opportunities for this kind of behavior, the more likely employees will choose to contribute feedback in the workplace.

Achieving the Motive, Means, and Opportunity in an Organizational Learning Environment

From Britton:

Motive

  • Develop a planned strategy
    • Create a clear vision for the organization of how organization learning can contribute to the organization's effectiveness, capacity, sustainability, and health.
    • Identify barriers to learning and develop ways of overcoming them.
    • Build learning goals into plans at all levels: individual, project, program, and strategic
    • Demonstrate the value of investing in organizational learning by monitoring and evaluating the outcomes and impact of organizational learning initiatives
    • Develop systems for acknowledging and rewarding learning
    • Develop mechanisms for establishing collective responsibility for results.
  • Create conditions for "emergent" possibilities
    • Share practical examples of the benefits of organizational learning
    • Share and celebrate successful initiatives
    • De-mystify learning by familiarizing staff with useful conceptual models.
    • Emphasize the importance of "small scale" learning.

Means

  • Develop a planned strategy
    • Map out where expertise lies in the organization.
    • Develop team-working
    • Introduce a range of methods such as mentoring, coaching, action-learning, and communities of practice.
    • Build an appropriate knowledge management infrastructure
    • If appropriate, create posts for supporting organization learning or knowledge management.
  • Create conditions for "emergent" possibilities
    • Develop individual competencies
    • Recognize the importance of cultural dimensions of learning when building competencies and developing methods and tools.
    • Strengthen inter-personal relationships and build trust.

Opportunity

  • Develop a planned strategy
    • Create the "space" for learning
    • Build learning into existing systems and procedures
    • Build learning requirements into project design, monitoring, and evaluation
    • Build time and resources for relfection and learning into project and program proposals.
    • Use a system of annual studies on "what have we learned from evaluations?"
    • Use thematic learning reviews.
    • Involve staff/partners alongside external consultants in review and evaluation teams.
  • Create conditions for "emergent" possibilities
    • Build a rich web of interconnections within the organization and with other organizations by encouraging networking and the development of communities of practice.
    • Introduce "no-travel" times, "homeweeks" and relection periods.

Maintaining Accountability

In addition to the importance of encouraging a learning environment, attaining a sense of accountability within these organizations is also extremely important. Accountability, according to Dr. Jem Bendell, can be defined as working on transparency throughout the organization, responsiveness to the public the NGO serves, maintaining a code of ethics, as well as legitimacy and regulation. (Bakker) Without accountability, management practices of an NGO may fall victim to mistrust in the public eye. As coordinator of the Global Development Research Center, Hari Srinivas, points out there are a number of strategies for NGOs to build their credibility:

  • Use of academics and experts to evaluate NGO projects and activities
  • Associating with national or regional associations, alliances, or forums
  • Obtaining UN accreditation
  • Finding credible spokespeople
  • Speaking and publishing regularly
  • Seeking awards and prizes as recognition for work done
  • Partnering with key community, governmental and industry entities
  • Writing case studies that tell compelling stories from people and communities they serve
  • Getting stories/media coverage
  • Understanding an NGO's strengths and larger connections, communicate the strengths and connections consistently
  • Keeping a significant presence online - both web and email
  • Generating a strong program of marketing and communications through newsletters, bulletins, press releases, etc.

Evidently, these strategies are geared towards having the NGO remain transparent and in constant communication with those it represents as well as those it serves. From this list, the common theme of NGOs and accessibility can also be noted as a crucial factor to building credibility. By creating a code of conduct, NGOs can begin to publicly define what is acceptable standard behavior. Furthermore, this framework can be viewed as a commitment to attaining higher values and goals as well as adding a degree of professionalism to their organization. Some examples of organizations that have successfully created codes of conduct can be found in organizations such as the Canadian Council for International Cooperation. Their code of conduct simply consists of a preamble stating the objectives of the NGO, then principles that the NGO should follow such as, “have some definable constituency or membership”, “have a fair wage structure with a credible scale”, etc. These examples simply define values or standards that the Canadian Council promises to follow.

Accreditation Programs

However at times, it is evident that simply codes of conduct were not enough. With no tangible rewards or punishments for noncompliance, it is hard to make sure that these codes were being followed through. Therefore, in addition to simply creating codes of conduct, practicing accreditation is also a great way to utilize some sort of enforcement of the code of ethics. A survey conducted by the International Center for Not for Profit Law, found that the Maryland Association has a voluntary certification program that operates through peer review through other member agencies. When successfully attaining this approval, these non governmental organizations would be rewarded a “seal of excellence”. This survey concluded that “85% of Marylanders asserted that whether or not a charity has a seal of approval for ethical standards and accountability given by a reputable association is an important factor in making giving decisions.” As the report conducted by the International Center for Not for Profit Law reports, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) is noted as a successful organization with an effective code and accreditation program. ECFA has a standards committee which acts as the investigative arm of the board. It includes various types of experts, some from members, others not; however, all are part of the religious culture. The committee has no power by itself, but makes recommendations to the board. The committee reviews extensive questionnaires filled out by the members and made 80 random site visits in 2000, which members had to pass. Peer regulation works because any bad member organization “threatens the good image of all the others.” ECFA also separately investigates when complaints are made about a member’s possible non-compliance. The ECFA seal of approval thus provides donors with assurances of members’ legitimacy. (Bothwell) A great way to keep the organization accountable is by joining general organizations such as the Credibility Alliance, which is aimed at developing standards of governance to be followed by the member organizations. Organizations such as this helps its members consult with one another and participate with each other to create guidelines by sharing information and learning to adhere to them. In other words, it functions as a medium between state benefactors, beneficiaries, as well as professionals. It becomes a simple way to create and provide information about themselves to donor organizations and state agencies. Its objectives are:

  • Development of norms of governance, based on consensus, through participation and consultation.
  • Promotion of an accreditation system for the voluntary sector.
  • Promotion of capacity-building initiatives for voluntary organisations to enable compliance with norms.
  • Policy advocacy for enhanced credibility, acceptability and recognition of the work done by the voluntary sector in the eyes of the government, the donor community, the corporate sector, the media and the public.

The criteria for joining this organization are as follows: the need to build an identity, creating a vision and objectives, practicing good governance, operating the management and human resources branch effectively, and building accountability and transparency through signed audited statements, income and expenditure statements, and reports disseminated to stakeholders on an annual basis. Evidently, by joining an organization such as this, it is easy to keep accountable to the public as well as to potential donors.

Conclusion

As the number of NGOs continues to grow, proper management practices become a pressing concern. This paper concludes that management practices of an NGO should be centered on fostering a culture of organizational learning and methods of maintaining accountability. While organizational learning encourages a work culture of constant productive feedback and creative innovations, maintaining a culture of accountability is also crucial to helping establish trust and credibility for the organization. Ways to achieve this are through developing a code of ethics and joining an accreditation program.

References

  • Bakker, I. (2002) “Fiscal Policy, Accountability and Voice: The Example of Gender Responsive Budget Initiatives.” Occasional Paper, Human Development Report Office, UNDP, New York.
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