DOES THE UN NEED “MOBILITY”?

Interview with Ms. Jan Beagle, Assistant Secretary General for Human Resource Management.

JEAN-MICHEL JAKOBOWICZ

Ms. Jan Beagle, Assistant
Secretary General for
Human Resource Management.

Why does the Organization need mobility?
In recent years, the mandates given by Member States to the UN have become very diverse both in substance and location. In order to perform these tasks the Organization needs a more flexible work force, both in terms of skill sets and in geographical terms. There are duty stations which face chronic high vacancy rates and that needs to be managed, including through mobility. However, mobility is not a one-way street intended only to meet the needs of the Organization. Mobility is also a way to offer more varied and interesting careers to staff.

Why does the UN need multi-skilled people?
In fact, the UN needs a mix of expertise. It needs highly specialized people, but it increasingly needs people who can work across disciplines because so many of our mandates are cross-programmatic. If you look at the missions in the field, they bring together people with expertise in areas such as peace keeping, peace making, humanitarian, human rights, environment, legal and administration. To be effective in this context, we need people who have a broader understanding of the Organization and the possibility to work in an integrated way.

Isn’t it a bit contradictory to hire people with let us say 15 years experience in a certain specialty and ask them to move after 5 years to another specialty?
It is not expected or mandatory that staff would change occupational groups, but it is expected that they will not remain in the same position. You may be a political advisor, but you can do that job in different departments or locations. We have already this policy for staff at the P-2 level who are obliged to move during the first five years of service. What we see is that these young people are moving on their own, because they are eager to discover all the facets of the UN work.

Certain managers feel that this system is a waste of resources. They invest in the training of a junior staff member and after two years when they start to be really productive they leave?
It is true that certain managers have this reaction. However, it is very important for junior people who enter the organization to have a broad view of the work of the UN. This is a common practice in governments and in the private sector where people are given different assignments and opportunities early in their careers.

To come back to the current exercise, certain people feel that it is a waste of resources moving people every 5 years. The first two years staff members get acquainted with their job and during the two last years they look for another job. In other words they will be really effective during one year!
Do you think that it is good for people to stay for 10, 15, 20 years doing the same job? I have met many staff members who think that even 5 years in a job is too long. What we are now trying to do is to change people’s mentality. We try to improve the effectiveness of the Organization; we try to stimulate people to think differently. Such change will not happen overnight, so that is why the policy which includes post occupancy limits was introduced in 2002, to have enough time to prepare. Furthermore, this is not a rigid exercise – exceptions have been and continue to be granted for legitimate reasons such as family or medical reasons, or jobs which are specialist.

It is not the first time that we speak of mobility in the UN. In the past there has already be some attempts. In particular people were encouraged to go on mission with the incentive that if they would go on mission they would be better placed for a promotion. And what happened was exactly the opposite. People went on mission, their supervisors were upset that they had left and their colleagues who remained in town got promoted.
That is exactly what we are trying to correct. Mobility should be seen as an advantage in consideration for promotion and not the opposite. Resistance to change is common in any large organization, and may come also from managers. When you have an efficient staff member you don’t want to lose him or her. That is very human, but on the other hand managers have to understand that the work of the organization is not limited to one entity, the whole of the UN has to work properly and it is their duty to participate in these new undertakings.

People are very anxious about this whole exercise!
It is true and expected that some people are anxious about these changes, but there are also others who are quite excited about this change. The idea is not to have a policy which is detrimental to the staff. What we are trying to do is to meet the needs of the organization but, in doing so, also meet individual staff members’ needs. The challenge is to find the balance in addressing differing interests and needs.

Will there be a different treatment for General Services and Professionals?
For professionals, it is clear that they are at the disposal of the Secretary-General. As General Service staff are recruited locally it is more difficult for them to move, especially in smaller duty stations. At the end of the current exercise, we may well have to develop a special program for professionals which would not apply to General Service staff. I could even envisage that in the future mobility for General Service staff might be done on a voluntary basis.

Do you think that many staff members agree with the mobility programme?
I think that it is too early to decidedly agree or disagree with this programme. It is a work in progress and we will assess the results based on experience in the coming period. There are many ways to approach the issue of promoting mobility, including the one we have in place now, but that does not preclude us to seek ways to improve it. It is my hope that mobility will be seen as an opportunity for learning, development and career growth.