Craig Donaldson speaks with HR officer Xavier Hennekinne about the successes and challenges of HR management at Australians Care for Refugees (AUSTCARE)
Craig Donaldson speaks with HR officer Xavier Hennekinne about the successes and challenges of HR management at Australians Care for Refugees (AUSTCARE)
How is the approach to HR different in humanitarian organisations?
The approach is probably not fundamentally different, though it places a lot of emphasis on staff wellbeing.
Security, safety and health policies and procedures have to go much further than traditional OHS. They have to reflect the level of risk – whether physical or psychological – employees may face. Even though security, safety and health are the responsibility of all staff, an organisation has to have policies and processes in place to ensure staff can perform their duties in the safest and most secure conditions possible. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) generally accept responsibility for preventing, or limiting and responding to stress their employees find themselves exposed to.
At AUSTCARE, we set up a staff welfare committee to develop tools to monitor and respond to stress, from assessment of candidates’ ability to cope in certain situations, to pre-deployment briefings. We also provide specific induction and training and professional psychological support to our staff in the wake of what we call critical or traumatic incidents, for instance. Staff are always debriefed on an operational and personal level when they return from assignments.
NGOs tend to collaborate more. Even though we ‘compete’ for the same donor dollar, most NGOs help each other where they can. I have worked, for instance, with HR officers from other organisations to develop security plans for our offices overseas.
Another role that HR plays is in capacity building – helping local NGOs in other countries develop their people management practices to better respond to their donor requirements. Recently, I worked on implementing a performance management system with a partner in the Palestinian Territories after having designed and rolled it out in AUSTCARE.
What are the main challenges for HR within AUSTCARE?
Staff wellbeing is a big challenge. Staff are very committed to their jobs and the organisation’s vision and mission. So committed, in fact, that everyone works long hours. They don’t work long hours because senior management tells them too; they work long hours because they like what they are doing. HR has put systems in place to ensure employees don’t burn out.
Part of my role is to implement HR policies and procedures in our Cambodian, Indonesian and East Timorese offices. Managing the tensions between national cultural values and the assumption that best HR practice is universal can be tricky. Cultural sensitivity is something I constantly have to be aware of.
How to respond to international situations and their repercussions on staff welfare and security is also a huge challenge. We have to be prepared for all eventualities: earthquakes in Aceh; bird flu pandemic across Asia; and civil unrest in the Palestinian Territories.
What have been the biggest HR successes within AUSTCARE?
Introducing initiatives that contribute directly to the improvement of the organisation’s effectiveness, without having created an overly procedural or bureaucratic HR function, is first.
Secondly, during my field trips, I felt I was really making a difference by building the capacity of our staff in country and partners. I have had a lot of fun and great satisfaction working with my colleagues in East Timor and Aceh in Indonesia.
Third, is probably the set up of the Rapid Response Register, with my colleague Kate Berry and the rest of the team. The purpose of the register is to provide UN agencies, such as UNICEF, with fully funded and experienced emergency workers on short notice in the case of emergencies. So far, we have deployed emergency workers in Sudan and Pakistan and have plans for further deployment in Uganda and Somalia.
What have been the main lessons learned?
The first lesson learned is that you can work with little and make a difference. When you don’t have a big budget, you look for assistance where you can find it. I have been lucky to work with lawyers and HR specialists who offered their services on a pro bono basis.
I am reasonably impatient. I would like everything done at once. I have had to learn to be more patient when facing the task of setting up all of AUSTCARE’s HR systems.
