Office/Unit/Project Description

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality, and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNDP’s policy work carried out at HQ, Regional and Country Office levels, forms a contiguous spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. In this context, UNDP invests in the Global Policy Network (GPN), a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains and in support of the signature solutions and organizational capabilities envisioned in the Strategic Plan.

Within the GPN, the Crisis Bureau guides UNDP’s corporate crisis and fragility related strategies and vision for crisis prevention, response, and recovery. The Bureau has the responsibility for support to prevention, crisis response, resilience, recovery and peacebuilding work under the auspices of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. Crisis Bureau staff provide global strategic advice to UNDP management and technical advice to regional hubs and Country Offices; advocate for UNDP corporate messages, represent UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora, and engage in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas.

These contexts that account for more than half of UNDP’s resource delivery, the pursuit for UNDP to be fast, effective, efficient and cutting edge is critical. The Crisis Bureau in consultation with BMS established the SURGE Delivery Lab in 2020 to boost UNDP’s work in such challenging circumstances. The SURGE Delivery Lab is responsible for providing short term support to country offices to accelerate delivery and provide solutions to operational bottlenecks. The Lab is activated in consultation with the Regional Bureaus, in country offices where it is deemed that the Lab’s interventions would provide immediate and time-bound results.

The key goals of the Lab include:

• Analysis of current operations capacities and processes.
• Identification of delivery, operational and procedural challenges.
• Solution mapping and implementation through innovation and experimentation.
• Ensuring that the engagements can offer sustainable delivery solutions.

The Programme Analyst will also be responsible for supporting the Joint OHR/BMS and GPN Project on Strategic Management of UNDP Capacities and Workforce Planning.

The right capabilities, at both organizational and individual level, are essential for UNDP to succeed. This is explicitly captured in the Strategic Plan which commits UNDP to building, through its “People for 2030” Strategy, “the skills and competencies to respond to development challenges of the future.

The Joint Project will lay the groundwork in ensuring that the rights capabilities within UNDP are readily available and accessible across the organisation. In this context, strategic workforce planning and management are at the core of UNDP’s integrated people strategy – People for 2030 – launched in 2019.

Taking from UNDP’s SURGE mechanism, the analyst supports the development and rollout of policies and SOPs that will allow the organization to easily and proactively identify and release talent for both short term needs and longer-term recruitment efforts.

Scope of Work

The Programme Analyst will work collaboratively with CSMT/Crisis Bureau, BPPS and OHR to conceptualize, design and develop operations solutions for country offices in fragile contexts and implement the Joint OHR/BMS and GPN Project.

1)           Coordinate the implementation of the Lab’s strategies in its Country Office Engagements

• Support country offices in fragile contexts for potential Lab engagements based on context, crises, interest, and delivery challenges.
• Develop 360-degree approaches to looking at operations in country offices, targeting specific bottlenecks and addressing non-traditional operations issues such as digitalisation, leadership training, risk, operating culture etc.
• Leverage the Delivery Lab to support the implementation of the Crisis Offer by promoting operational agility in fragile contexts.
• Assist in management, engagement and contracting of Lab consultants. Identify relevant expertise from the GPN ExpRes and SURGE rosters and the UNDP Talent Marketplace and manage recruitment-processes
• Assist the development of SURGE Delivery Lab Engagement Frameworks and/or SURGE Delivery Lab section in SURGE plans that outline the Lab’s engagement with each country office.

2)           Support the SURGE Delivery Lab’s experimentation and innovation agenda 

• Crisis Recruitment: collectively learn from past experiences and see how efficient processes for recruitment were engaged, and how they can be mainstreamed in crisis countries.
• Crisis waivers: In partnership with BMS, collate all successful waivers and make a “waiver toolbox” available to country offices that need such critical actions.
• Develop and deliver new concepts for Lab products, such as DIY Delivery Lab, the Lab’s corporate solutions and Next Generation Fast Track Procedures.
• Develop a risk tolerance framework to identify, map and deploy UNDP personnel for appropriate risk contexts.
• Assist in the development and roll out of the Strategic Operations for Crisis Response in Development Emergencies Vision:

3)           Assit in the development and roll out ‘special projects’ for corporate and country office operational agility in fragile contexts.

• Support the development and roll of the Next Generation Fast Track Procedures Generation Vision Document and project proposal in partnership with BMS.
• In collaboration with BMS assist in the introduction of the next generation of FTPs to support UNDP COs in fragile contexts with trainings etc.
• Support large scale recruitment campaigns in country offices looking to pivot programmtic prorities.
• Support the roll out of the operations aspect and socialisation process of the Crisis Response Packages

4)           Support the functioning of all activities of the Lab Coordination Unit

• Ensure that a pool of internal and external expertise is available and can be engaged as part of the Lab’s Solutions Network
• Convene SURGE Delivery Lab Governance Board Meetings expected to meet every second quarter and as required for special circumstances.
• Provide timely updates and presentations to the governance board to provide insight and facilitate their overall direction and vision for the lab.
• Convene SURGE Delivery Lab Technical Guidance Group Meetings
• Foster Lab relationships with relevant UNDP units
• Contribute to the content and publication of the Lab’s monthly updates and annual reports.
• Contribute to the content of the SURGE Delivery Lab SharePoint site
• Provide vision, leadership and a framework for UNDP’s capacity mapping efforts and strategic workforce planning goals.

5)           Support the implementation of the corporate priorities of GPN/OHR Joint Project on Strategic Management of UNDP Capacities and Workforce Planning 

• Develop UNDP’s workforce planning framework, including plans to address talent gaps.
• Coordinate the development and roll out of UNDP’s workforce planning platform.
• Apply data and available technology to headhunt the best talent within the organization and recommend opportunities for recruitment, SURGE and detail assignments, in support of the mobility policy. This would be a key contribution to the People for 2030 agenda.
• Leverage capacity mapping and workforce planning data to support the management of UNDP leadership pools and succession management.
• Leverage data and artificial intelligence from ATS platforms used by UNDP to assist Senior Management in making senior leadership recruitment decisions.
• Develop talent pools across the organization by utilizing data and analysis generated from capacity mapping and workforce planning.
• Drive integration efforts between available UNDP platforms to ensure effective, accurate and timely recruitment across the organization.
• Liaise with OHR Leadership, HR Business Partners, Learning & Development, Talent Acquisition and GPN Team Leaders to periodically review and enhance policies in support of UNDP’s workforce priorities and provide relevant updates to competency frameworks.
• Provide support for UNDP’s mobility process by proactively identifying relevant colleague for job opportunities
• Develop and manage an internal talent marketplace to complement the UNDP Consultants (ExpRes) Deployment Mechanism.

6)           Assist in the development and roll out of the Talent Marketplace to support the roll out of the GPN Service Offer, the Crisis Offer and the Strategic Plan

• Provide UNDP thematic and operations team leaders with regular analysis and reports of their relevant capacities across the organization.
• Support central and regional bureaus in identifying talent gaps/opportunities within or between locations, thematic areas, and bureaus (e.g., is there a talent sitting in one Bureau that could be leveraged to meet the immediate need of another Bureau).
• Leverage capacity mapping and analysis to support the roll out of the GPN Service and Crisis offers.
• Drive large-scale workforce planning efforts that solve significantly complex problems by implementing the GPN’s crisis offer in country offices.
• Support the Digital Knowledge Management initiative by leveraging capacity mapping analysis and identifying experts from across the organization to generate, adapt and apply knowledge to respond to the needs of UNDP.
• In collaboration with OHR and the GPN Directorate, develop a policy and SOP enabling the organization to access internal talent seamlessly.
• Ensure that incentives and relevant compensation mechanisms are made available to offices releasing their personnel to support the implementation of the strategic plan and roll out of the GPN service offers (including the crisis offer).

Institutional Arrangement

The SURGE Delivery Lab is a SURGE Initiative situated within the Crisis Bureau’s Country Support Management Team (CSMT). Capacity mapping, workforce planning and succession management are led by OHR.

The Analyst will report to the Programme Advisor, SURGE Delivery Lab and Workforce Planning. He/she will also be guided by OHR Management.

Competencies 

Core

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies 

Minimum Qualifications of the Successful IPSA

Min. Academic Education           

• Advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent) in economics, political science, management, social science of similar, or
• A first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in combination with an additional two years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Min. years of relevant Work experience              

• Minimum 2 years (with master’s degree) or 4 years (with bachelor’s degree) of working experience in crisis response, UNDP programme and operations, talent management, people and culture, organizational development and/or management in an international development context.

Desired additional skills and competencies        

• Experience in crisis response, and in particular an operations focus is desirable.
• Experience in complex services with a large HR component, especially those involving major change initiatives such as capacity mapping, large scale recruitments, roster development and management and/or fast track deployments is desirable.

Required Language(s)   

• Fluency in English, both written and oral. Working knowledge of another UN language is desirable.