Terms of Reference for a Consultancy on the
Analysis of Flexible Work Arrangements in UNHCR
1.General Background
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another state, with the option to return home voluntarily, to integrate locally or to resettle in a third country. It also has a mandate to help stateless people.
Since 1950, the agency has helped tens of millions of people restart their lives. In recent years the numbers of people requiring UNHCR’s protection and assistance has spiked. Global forced displacement has seen accelerated growth in 2014, once again reaching unprecedented levels. The year saw the highest displacement on record. By end-2014, 59.5 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or human rights violations. This is 8.3 million persons more than the year before (51.2 million) and the highest annual increase in a single year.[1] Current events point to this number trending further upward in 2015. Asylum applications for the period January to August 2015 are more than double the number of asylum applications in the same time period in 2014. In some countries, asylum applications have increased by 77 per cent in the first half of 2015 compared to the first half of 2014. UNHCR endeavours to meet these needs through its personnel posted in 123 countries.
A variety of employment contracts are available for UNHCR personnel[2]. The majority of UNHCR personnel are “staff” and are on a contract that is between the individual and the organisation, UNHCR. The terms and duration of these direct contracts with individuals can vary, yet for the most part they exceed one or two years and provide a full package of benefits. This type of contract is offered to people who have been charged against a budgeted position and have passed through the oversight of a central review board. “Indefinite” and “Fixed-Term Appointment” (FTA) contracts are included in this category.
Personnel who have a direct contract with UNHCR and may or may not be charged against a budgeted post but have not passed through the oversight of a central review board are on “Temporary Appointment” (TA) contracts. Temporary Appointments, Fixed-Term Appointments and Indefinite Contracts are considered to be staff within UNHCR. They are classified as “staff” under the broader category of personnel. UNHCR staff are governed by theStaff Rules and Staff Regulations of the United Nation(the UN Staff Rules) issued by the United Nations Secretary General and General Assembly respectively. The UN Staff Rules guide all aspects of recruitment, contracting, salary and allowances, performance and termination with precision. The United Nations internal justice system also applies to UNHCR staff.
Due to the nature of its mandate and role in responding to conflict-induced, humanitarian crises and the large-scale exoduses they produce, UNHCR periodically needs to rapidly expand its workforce beyond this rigid, heavily prescribed category of staff. In order to be flexible and swift in its humanitarian responses, UNHCR contracts another category of personnel who work as members of UNHCR teams but is not legally UNHCR staff. This “non-staff” category of UNHCR personnel is composed of the “affiliate workforce” centrally managed by the Division of Human Resources (DHRM) and “deployees” managed by the various Divisions in UNHCR, including the Division of International Protection (DIP) and the Division of Programme Support Management (DPSM). Both are an integral part of UNHCR’s non-staff workforce.
The affiliate workforce is comprised primarily of people who have been hired through other UN organisations, have not passed through the oversight of a central review board, and, are not charged against a budgeted post. For the most part, the contracts and salary payments are between the individual and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and the United Nations Volunteer programme (UNV). To a far lesser extent, UNHCR contracts individual consultants, contractors and interns to fulfil personnel needs. UNOPS, UNVs, consultants, contractors and interns are included in the current UNHCR definition of the “affiliate workforce”.
“Deployees” are stand-by partners, secondments, rosters, and pools of experts from longstanding partners such as the Norwegian Refugee Council, the Danish Refugee Council, the International Catholic Migration Commission, the International Rescue Committee, and RefugePoint. They are another category of “non-staff” and are critical to UNHCR’s ability to respond to emergencies[3]. Deployment schemes are a regular and often long term component of UNHCR’s non-staff workforce, not only in response to emergency operations, but also in the context of regular UNHCR mandate activities such as refugee status determination (RSD)[4] and resettlement.[5] As such, deployment arrangements will also fall under the scope of this review since they need to be included in the rationalization of UNHCR’s approach to non-staff.
It should be noted that the affiliate workforce and deployees (hereinafter collectively referred to as non-staff) are not only used for emergency responses. Non-staff can be contracted to perform work that is temporary in nature as well as to fill gaps over longer periods of time. UNHCR’s Refugee Status Determination (RSD) and Resettlement functions are good examples of the latter. Deployees comprise a substantial portion of personnel in both of these vital functions that are at the heart of UNHCR’s mandate. In the case of RSD, the surge in the use of deployees is due to a sudden increase in the workload by and large caused by forced displacement out of the Middle East and North Africa. Whereas, many deployees in the Resettlement function have been contracted on a deployment arrangement for a long time.
Non-staff are often contracted when there is a demand for a specific technical expertise, (e.g. road engineers, IT systems specialist), which is not readily available amongst UNHCR staff, or, the expertise is only required for a limited duration. Non-staff with specific skills can sometimes be contracted for talent development and capacity building of UNHCR staff. Staff and non-staff work side by side in UNHCR headquarters and field offices, and, the consultant(s) needs to examine both categories of personnel in order to analyse this complex dynamic and make solutions oriented recommendations for a rational, transparent and equitable personnel framework for them. Thus, this consultancy will address the relationship between UNHCR’s “staff” and “non-staff” personnel.
There are legal, financial, practical and human considerations implicit in looking at how staff and non-staff co-exist in UNHCR. For a baseline, the requested analysis needs to focus on the use of non-staff in the past five years and how the arrangements were administered and managed. The consultant(s) will need to benchmark these arrangements against the administration and management of staff as well as to review what constitutes staff functions in relation to the more flexible non-staff arrangements. The consultant(s) are requested to measure the consistency of these arrangements with UNHCR’s recently issued, People Strategy(in attachment).
Under various modalities, UNHCR has had a blended workforce for decades, and, UNHCR anticipates it will always have a blended workforce of staff and non-staff personnel. Thus, UNHCR would like to draw upon global trends and the most up-to-date “good practices” for temporary, project-related staffing in contemporary human resource management policies. The consultant(s) are requested to apply this guidance to the internal findings on the use of staff and non-staff in UNHCR.
As a result, the consultant(s) should recommend how UNHCR can administer and manage all of its personnel with integrity and equity while preserving its operational agility in a cost effective manner. The recommendations should include a coherent definition of the various contract options and accompany guidance on the selection of one type of contract over another. Legal, financial, institutional capacity, and reputational risks should be weighed in making these recommendations.
2.Overall Purpose and Scope of Assignment
The purpose of this analysis is to provide current, evidence-based recommendations on the most strategic and ethical use of personnel in a blended workforce. The analysis will take into account the cost, level and consistency of demands on UNHCR for a flexible, rapidly deployable pool of people who possess advanced and relevant skills for refugee protection and assistance. At the same time, the analysis will provide insights from a global literature review of contemporary practices in managing a flexible, blended workforce as well as the personnel management frameworks presented in UNHCR’s People Strategy and People in Aid’s Code of good practice in the management and support of aid personnel(attached).
This analysis will benefit from both internal and independent reviews, audits and evaluations that have been conducted in the past two years. These documents provide organisational analysis and mapping, survey results, demographics and other relevant statistics, as well as legal and financial analysis of flexible workforce arrangements.
The scope of this analysis is global. It will look at a composite of UNHCR offices throughout the world and their staffing structures. The consultants will be expected to analyse how UNHCR’s global policies on non-staff have been implemented in regional and situation specific operations. This analysis is expected to inform the recommendations for UNHCR’s global policies and management of its personnel, both non-staff and staff.
3.Objectives
- To provide a summary of both staff and non-staff arrangements worldwide in UNHCR for the period 2010 – 2015. The summary should include overall trends in the use of these different workforce options. Factors that drove these trends should also be presented in the analysis. The following should be included in this analysis:
· The types of operations where personnel are deployed, e.g. protracted urban settings, protracted camp-based settings, emergency urban situations, emergency camp-based situations;
· The types and lengths of contracts held, e.g. Indefinite, FTA, TA, national UNV, international UNV, national UNOPS, international UNOPs; deployments, consultancies, etc.;
· Positions for both categories of personnel broken down by function, grade and location;
· Geographic analysis of the use of various workforce categories in different regions; and,
· The composition of staff and non-staff workforces described in terms of nationalities and gender.
- To provide a global comparison of all aspects of the compensation and emoluments for the different types of workforce arrangements. In addition to mapping and analysing leveled salaries, pensions and other benefits and allowances, the consultant(s) should map all social, medical, travel and security services provided to the various categories of contracts. To provide a comprehensive analysis, the consultant(s) should also examine non-financial means of support to staff holding the various contracts. Support services can range from travel and visa support to mental health and psychosocial support. Performance appraisal mechanisms in place for the various categories of contracts should also be included in this comparison. Legal, financial, institutional capacity, and reputational risks should be described and mapped. This analysis should be accompanied by a financial analysis of the costs to UNHCR for the different types of compensation and emoluments.
- To examine the prevailing practices and global trends influencing the use of blended workforce arrangements and how compliant they are, in general, with international labour laws and norms. UNHCR realizes that many of its sister UN organisations are reviewing their current non-staff arrangements and the consultant(s) should inquire into their findings in this regard. The consultant(s) will be expected to analyse the potential application of these practices and principles to the management and administration of UNHCR’s non-staff workforce. Studies and guidance on the ratio of staff to non-staff in relevant industries should also be investigated in the literature.
- To formulate clear, realistic recommendations for UNHCR’s future administration and strategic management of its workforce. The recommendations should include guidance on how to define and align the staff and non-staff workforces. The definitions should include the terms and conditions for engaging staff on various contracts. As mentioned earlier, the administration of UNHCR’s staff must adhere to the UN Staff Rules and UN security rules. Although, there is greater scope for recommendations on the administration of UNHCR’s non-staff, they too are governed by the rules and regulations of their third-party employers, e.g. UNV, UNOPS, Norwegian Refugee Council, etc. Yet, recommendations can still be constructed In light of these administrative frameworks. For example, if UNHCR is not responsible to medically evacuate a non-staff person, a recommendation could be formulated on who and how to medevac the person in order to ensure more complementarity in the care of all UNHCR personnel. Recommendations should include advice on streamlining and simplifying procedures where possible. Recommendations will need to include guidance on how these new processes can be incorporated in UNHCR’s business systems, e.g. PeopleSoft human resources and finance modules and UNHCR’s internal budget software, Focus.Draft revisions of UNHCR’s policies concerning non-staff, i.e. Affiliate Workforce Arrangements in UNHCRshould also be provided.
The desired ratio(s) of staff and non-staff for different scenarios including emergency responses, global workforce retooling, preserving the status quo, growth, and, downsizing should be included in the recommendations. The consultant(s) should clearly outline the specific roles and levels of responsibility that should be ascribed to staff and non-staff in the various scenarios. Moreover, the recommendations should align with UNHCR’s commitment to occupational health and safety and duty of care as stated in the People Strategy.
4.The Context
Between 2010 and the end of 2013, UNHCR more than doubled its use of UNVs and UNOPS personnel. In this same period, the proportion of UNVs and UNOPS personnel in UNHCR’s global workforce rose from 22 per cent to 39 per cent. This trend did not escape the notice of UNHCR staff and oversight bodies alike including the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) who asked UNHCR to look into the use and contractual administration of non-staff and formulate a plan. Per the OIOS, the plan should provide an assessment of the financial resources required for its implementation and include an analysis of the existing use of non-staff personnel and related policies in light of internationally accepted labour principles. The plan should also include recommendations regarding working conditions, including fair salary, social benefits and entitlements for non-staff personnel.
The UNHCR Inspector General’s Office (IGO) has also requested DHRM to improve oversight over the use of the non-staff workforce and therefore the plan should contain concrete recommendations in this regard. Thus, this consultancy is being commissioned by UNHCR’s DHRM to provide independent, objective analysis and recommendations linked to modern good-practice in human resource management.
5.Methodology and Deliverables
This consultancy is largely a desk-based analysis with the exception of consultations with DHRM staff in Geneva and Budapest. Travel to one or two field locations, (e.g. Amman, Jordan, and Nairobi, Kenya), where they contract a significant amount of non-staff working alongside UNHCR staff will also be required.
The consultant(s) are expected to provide a literature review of publications regarding humanitarian personnel management as well as broader human resource management practices for “flexible employment”, “temporary employees or workers, ”short tenure”, “blended workforces” and “workplace arrangements”. The consultant(s) are encouraged to examine humanitarian doctrine, such as the People in Aid Code of Good Practice in the management and support of aid personnel as well as peer-reviewed and academic publications on human resource management.
A desk review of relevant policies for both the staff and non-staff workforce in UNHCR needs to be conducted to analyse the different contract modalities and benefits. The costs and levels of use of the different workforces also need to be reviewed through an examination of staff tables, budgets and organisational guidance on workforce composition. In both the desk review and the literature review, the consultant(s) are encouraged to draw heavily from the reviews, audits and evaluations that have recently been commissioned by UNHCR and other UN organisations on flexible workforces. The consultant(s) will be provided with 300-500 pages of existent documents for the document review phase. Any additional documents requested by the consultant(s) will be provided by a focal point in UNHCR’s DHRM.
In addition to the desk review of staff tables, budgets, and existing policies affecting personnel, the consultant(s) will be required to explain trends and their driving forces, e.g. perceived benefits of hiring UNVs and UNOPS, shorter recruitment periods or more flexibility in remuneration, etc. This will require individual interviews, in person or by phone, across hiring managers in UNHCR. The consultant(s) are expected to create a structured interview guide to compare and code responses across the interviews.
Field-based research instruments for focus groups andpersonal interview guides for key stakeholders including line managers, human resource managers and personnel holding various contracts should also be created, as well as a system of capturing observations regarding non-financial conditions affecting personnel such as housing.
The findings from the literature review, desk review, interviews and field-based research should be compiled in aFinal Report that ties recommendations to this analysis. The final report should include an executive summary that briefly describes the subject, purpose and methods of the analysis, and summarizes the main findings, conclusions and recommendations. The report’s data collection and analysis should be sensitive to age, gender and diversity considerations, and the report should highlight whether there were differences in results for different staff groups, as relevant. Findings should be based on analysis of the data, and must be relevant to the objectives of this Terms of Reference. Conclusions should be evidence-based, logically connected to the findings. Recommendations should be actionable and solutions-oriented. Recommendations should include ways of enhancing the monitoring and oversight of UNHCR’s personnel. Annexes should include final TORs, data collection tools, and other supporting documents.
6.Timeline and deliverables
The timeline for this project is split between 2015 and 2016. The following tasks are expected to be completed in 2015:
· Finalization of an agreed upon Terms of Reference including the methodology, deliverable formats, locations and schedule for field-based research;
· Submission of the Literature Review; and,
· Submission of the Document Review (including mapping and analysis of compensation schemes, budgets and UNHCR workforce trends).
The tasks for 2016 are as follows:
· Interviews completed and coded;
· Field research completed and coded;
· Draft preliminary findings tied to an evidence chain resulting from field and desk based research;
· Draft preliminary report; and
· Final report submitted by: end of April 2016
7. Formats for Proposals
Deadline for Proposals: October 31, 2015
Please submit Proposals to Ms. Gry Kristiansen, Resource Manager, DHRM Director’s Office, UNHCR ,kristian@unhcr.org
Proposals: Consultant(s) are encouraged to submit a detailed description of the methods and tools they will employ. They are also encouraged to describe similar projects they have completed. A work-plan needs to be included in the proposal.
Budgets: This consultancy will span UNHCR’s fiscal years 2015 and 2016. Thus, consultants are requested to submit budgets for the two separate years reflecting the work that will be accomplished in each year. Budgets should be submitted on the basis of deliverables with a costing of consultant(s) hours per deliverable. Travel costs should not be included in the budgets since travel will be paid in accordance with UN rates and UNHCR’s travel policy.
Annexes: Proposals should include a list of prior work highlighting projects that correlate to this scope of work. CVs of consultant(s) should be included. Letters of reference should also be included.
7.Oversight of the Consultancy
This analysis will be overseen by the Acting Deputy Director of DHRM.
[1]UNHCR Global Trends 2014, p.2.
[2] Personnel refers to people working for UNHCR in a “staff” and “non-staff” capacity. “Staff” are people on Indefinite, FTA and TA contracts with UNHCR. Non-staff refers to the affiliate work force categories of UNVs, UNOPS, contractors, consultants, and interns as well as arrangements between UNHCR and organisations who deploy their staff to work for UNHCR for a limited time, “deployees”.
[3] Internal rosters of UNHCR staff prepared to undertake deployments of a few months in response to an emergency situation are also not included in the definition and are not included in the scope of this review.
[4] A vital part of being recognized as a refugee is Refugee Status Determination, or RSD. This is the legal or administrative process by which governments or UNHCR determine whether a person seeking international protection is considered a refugee under international, regional or national law. States have the primary responsibility for determining the status of asylum-seekers, but UNHCR may do so where states are unable or unwilling. In recent years, due to changes in volumes and patterns of forced displacement, the refugee agency has been required to conduct RSD in more countries than before and for a greater number of people.
[5] Resettlement is the transfer of refugees from an asylum country to another State that has agreed to admit them and ultimately grant them permanent settlement. UNHCR is mandated by its Statute and the UN General Assembly Resolutions to undertake resettlement as one of the three durable solutions. Resettlement is unique in that it is the only durable solution that involves the relocation of refugees from an asylum country to a third country.
HOW TO APPLY:
Please submit proposals to Ms. Gry Kristiansen, Resource Manager, DHRM Director’s Office, UNHCR ,kristian@unhcr.org
