HR issues

Before I came, one of the questions that I had was how useful I was going to be able to be. Was flying over international staff unnecessary and patronising? The answer is no! I’ve been surprised at how our national staff often do not even think about doing (what is to me) the simplest things. Logic and initiative-taking are things that we take for granted, but actually, if you’re not taught or trained in them then you won’t use them! It means that a much higher degree of micro-management becomes necessary. You can’t just delegate a job and expect it to be done. If you don’t follow up, then you’ll receive a visitor a few days later going ‘why haven’t I got this or that?’ You go back to the staff member and find out that they didn’t complete the job because there was some sort of problem. ‘So why didn’t you do it this way? Or why didn’t you let us know?’ ‘Umm…’. It’s made more difficult to me because I can’t have in-depth conversations in French (and because it’s hard to adapt the trust level) so understanding their reasons is beyond me at present! However, I really like our staff – they’re hard workers and have got a good sense of humour.

HR is a big issue at the moment. Our project year finished at the end of April, and until we get a new budget signed then we’re not able to continue with the work. To make it fairer, the aim was to make all the staff redundant, although many people’s contracts finished at the end of April anyway.

Some positions we’ve needed to fulfil immediately, and had to renew straight away – the cook and cleaner being two of them! For others, like the guards, we need immediately but because we’ve reduced the number of guards (having closed our sub-base) it was necessary to have a competitive recruitment process to make it fairer. And in the meantime we used temporary workers alongside the two guards who had permanent contracts and who we therefore kept on. Then there’s other roles that we’ve needed immediately and we’ve known that we’ve wanted to keep the same people on. So do you just renew their contracts immediately and not go through the farce of having interviews when you know perfectly well who you’re going to hire? Or is it more equitable for everyone to have all positions competitive? But then, by law we’re obliged to prefer the same person on if the role is the same, unless we’ve got issues with their performance. Some people have fixed term contracts, but if a person has two continuous fixed term contracts they’re then on a permanent contract. That just complicates matters!

For the project staff – the agronomists etc – the structure has changed. That means it’s not clear who will take on what roles, so it’s necessary to use external recruitment – though if possible we prefer the people we already know. This whole budget gap feels quite horrible – we have no choice but to wait, but in the meantime people don’t know whether they’re going to have a job or not. They have a few weeks of not earning, with no guarantee of any job. Yet we’re hoping that many of them will reapply and work with us. That would never happen in the UK – people wouldn’t hang around waiting to see if they’ve got a job, they’d be off working for another organisation, planned a couple of months in advance. We as an employer have so much power, because of the lack of good jobs in Kindu and in Congo as a whole. In the UK, having a job is almost a right, with job security being an acceptable part of life. Here, having a good job is a bonus for a lucky few – even if you’re having to wait a month to see if you’ve still got one.