Chief, Organizational Design and Development, P-5, Division of Human Resources (DHR), Istanbul, Turkey #122468 (REQ# 560772)

Contract

This is a P-5 contract. This kind of contract is known as Professional and Director staff. It is normally internationally recruited only. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 10 years of experience, depending on education. More about P-5 contracts and their salaries.

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, hope

UNICEF is the leading humanitarian and development agency working globally for the rights of every child. Child rights begin with safe shelter, nutrition, protection from disaster and conflict and traverse the life cycle: pre-natal care for healthy births, clean water and sanitation, health care and education. For UNICEF to meet this mandate and its Core Commitments for Children, in the context of overcoming challenges of a fast-changing global context, there must be effective systems and practices in place to identify potential gaps, improve efficiency and effectiveness to better adapt to changes in the external and internal environment, and increase productivity and foster a positive and healthy work culture. The position is based in Istanbul and reports to the Deputy Director of the Division of Human Resources, Strategic Delivery.

How can you make a difference?

This key position will enable UNICEF to deliver on its commitments to children by leading the design, development, and implementation of enhancing both technical and social systems to overcome challenges faced by the organization to implement its mandate. The incumbent will lead a dedicated and newly established team for Organizational Design and Development (ODD) and will help the organization work towards desired future states identifying current issues and opportunities, and effectively supporting and facilitating teams through change.

The incumbent is responsible for conducting assessments to identify areas of improvement and facilitating the implementation of new systems and structures in order to stay current with industry trends and best practices in organizational development and design. S/he will support the Deputy Director of Human Resources in ensuring that the Organizational Design and Development team is a trusted and valued partner, leading dialogue, and action in close collaboration with other sections within DHR and UNICEF leadership in headquarters, regional and country offices, as well as other key internal stakeholders, and relevant external partners in driving UNICEF’s agenda.

Summary of key functions, accountabilities, and related duties/tasks:

1. People Management and Administration

• Provide leadership to the ODD team, ensuring effective people management practices, supporting staff wellbeing, and managing the organization's assets and financial resources for delivery of results in line with UNICEF’s organizational values (CRITAS).
• Ensure the development of the ODD team’s work plan, ensuring objectives are aligned with DHR’s strategic priorities.
• Establish clear performance objectives and timelines for direct reports and provide timely guidance to enable responsible and efficient job performance of the various ODD initiatives.
• Assess the team's performance regularly and in a timely manner, ensuring objectives are accomplished, monitoring progress, and reporting on results.
• Encourage innovation and support new initiatives by the team including exposing them to best practice externally and holding regular team and learning & development events.

2. Design Context and Diagnosis

• Identify areas for improvement by assessing the external environment and emerging organizational needs and assessing the impact of the challenges faced in the internal environment in terms of people, systems, and processes.
• Utilizing diagnostic insights, work with leaders to create operational strategies, systems, and structures that align with the organization's mandate and culture.

3. Workforce planning

• Develop and lead the UNICEF workforce planning strategy, drawing on best practices in future of work, with data inputs from the skills’ mapping project and human capital intelligence insights, including prediction.
• Develop a workforce planning cycle in collaboration with the Talent Engagement & Partnerships as well as Talent Development teams, to ensure effective communication, adoption, and success of implementation across the organization.
• Provide advice and guidance to offices for ensuring consistent application of the workforce planning strategy and principles to ensure that the organization anticipates and has the right person, in the right job and at the right time.

4. Strategic Organizational Design

• Conduct analyses to establish the current state of offices across the organization
• Determine necessary changes in people structures, systems, and processes to address new priorities and develop new ways of working for testing methods.
• Collaborate with internal resources to find opportunities for improvement and test different ways of operational methods and working.
• Conduct a thorough analysis of potential candidate designs and determine the models that most aptly align with the objectives and requirements of the organization.

4. Operational Organizational Design

• Facilitate the establishment of new programmes across UNICEF by advising on people requirements and advising on building new organizational charts and defining roles, taking on a lead role in the development of job descriptions.
• Work closely with the Global Shared Service Centre (GSSC) taking on a lead advisory role, for the classification of jobs, in alignment with ICSC guidelines.
• Support the realignment of operations and programmes, advising and leading the process of changes in job descriptions and/or the classification of jobs, taking into account the office’s evolving context and ICSC guidelines.
• Support the inclusion of people management accountabilities for supervisors into Job Descriptions, including for Representatives, and Deputy Representative Operations and Deputy Representative Programme to align with people-centric leadership approaches.
• Collaborate closely with GSSC to facilitate the reengineering of people components of business processes, enabling approved people strategies to be fully rolled out in a systematic manner.

5. Implementation & Change Management

• Lead the planning and execution of implementation of new organizational structures, systems, and processes, utilizing appropriate change management frameworks.
• Ensure appropriate project management approaches for risk management, implementation plans, communication strategies, and support measures are in place to facilitate a smooth transition for individuals into new realities in work teams and offices.
• Support simplified, more strategic Programme Budget Review (PBR) processes in offices, including a simplified Country Programme Management Process (CPMP) in collaboration with the Division of Finance & Administration (DFAM).
• Support the PBR processes of offices undergoing change, ensuring all stages of change impact on people are planned and responses proactively anticipated and mitigated, in collaboration with stakeholders.

6. Knowledge Management

• Collaborate with multiple stakeholders within Country, Regional offices, and HQ Divisions to collect best practices in organizational strategic and operational design within and outside UNICEF.
• Utilize learnings from Country programmes, Regional Office and Headquarter Divisions to create new innovations for approaches to Organizational strategic and operational design and practice.
• Create and manage an internal knowledge hub of resources and best practices on organizational design and development.
• Share resources back to offices, as guidance to facilitate effective practices in organizational and operational design practices.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Education

• An Advanced University Degree in Human Resources Management, Business Administration, Organizational Management, International Relations, Psychology, or other related Social Science field is required.

Experience

• A minimum of 12 years of relevant professional work experience in Human Resources Management or related functions in organizational development contexts.
• Demonstrated experience in organizational development and design, including leading and managing complex organizational change initiatives, and engaging multiple high-level stakeholders.
• A proven track record of developing and implementing successful strategies for improving operational effectiveness, efficiency, and overall performance.
• Broad knowledge and field experience in UNICEF programmes, other UN agencies or similar international organizations operating in complex and matrixed designs is required.
• Experience in effectively leading, managing and nurturing diverse and multi-cultural teams.
• Proven track record in building effective partnerships and networking.
• Experience in Project Management is required.
• Experience in information management is required.

Language

• Fluency in English (written & verbal) is required.
• Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values.

UNICEF competencies required for this post are...

• Nurtures, Leads and Manages People (3)
• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (3)
• Works Collaboratively with others (3)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (3)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (3)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (3)
• Drive to achieve impactful results (3)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (3)

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.