International Consultant to Conduct Baseline Assessment on Inclusive HR Practices

Contract

This is a International Consultant contract. More about International Consultant contracts.

Background

The United Nations is committed to fostering diversity and inclusion and is taking concrete steps to ensure that HR policies and systems, communications, and supporting premises (e.g. offices, meeting spaces, etc.) are inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities and personal assistants .These steps are being addressed in accordance with the general principles of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy (UNDIS) launched in 2019. UNDIS is a system-wide mechanism for sustainable and transformative progress on disability inclusion through all pillars of the UN’s work. Together, these efforts are also central to achieving the goals set forth in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to leave no one behind. Persons with disabilities are the largest minority group in the world, representing an estimated 15% of the world’s population, or approximately 1 billion people. They are a diverse, heterogeneous population that face discrimination and barriers that make it more challenging for them to access equal opportunities in the world of work. Including persons with disabilities into the workforce has shown to provide numerous benefits. They include improvements in cost-effectiveness, turnover and retention, reliability and punctuality, staff loyalty, inclusive work culture, increased innovation, productivity, work ethic, safety, ability awareness, agency image, and diversity, loyalty, and satisfaction of beneficiaries. Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments, which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. In line with the human rights-based approach to disability, the United Nations in Montenegro would like to further step-up actions to create an inclusive and enabling work environment so that persons with disabilities and staff with dependents with disabilities are included and have access to opportunities on an equal basis with others in the UN. UN Disability Inclusion Project in Montenegro

The United Nations Country Team (UNCT) in Montenegro is implementing a Disability Inclusion Project which is part of a global programme that at this stage includes 16 countries worldwide.

The project consists of three components and aims to promote disability inclusion in UN operations in the following areas:

1. Physical Accessibility of Premises
2. ICT/Digital Accessibility
3. Inclusive HR Services: Engagement and Recruitment of persons with disabilities

Note: Physical and ICT/ Digital accessibility are both enabling factors for an Inclusive HR Services. Assessments are completed and the implementation is underway.

Inclusive HR Services: Engagement and Recruitment of persons with disabilities As a part of this Disability Inclusion project, this Terms of References aims to improve the HR services recruitment practices, processes, and creating a more inclusive and supportive environment for persons with disabilities and personnel with dependents with disabilities of UN Agencies in Montenegro. Currently, among UN Agencies in Montenegro there are varying degrees of readiness in engaging and recruiting persons with disabilities. Some agencies have recruited persons with disabilities while some agencies have not yet recruited any person with disabilities but are committed to do so in the near future.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the guidance and supervision of the respective the UN Focal Point for Disability Inclusion, Disability Inclusion Project Team, the Consultant will conduct a baseline assessment of readiness of UN Agencies in Montenegro in engaging and recruiting persons with disabilities. The baseline assessment shall include the following components:

• Mapping of policies and practices on recruitment of persons with disabilities across UN Agencies, covering the whole end-to-end recruitment process, including job-requirements and descriptions, accessibility of vacancy announcement and disseminations, short-listing of candidates, interviews, tests, medical check-up, on-boarding process, and retention, satisfaction and advancement programs. Any good practices should be highlighted.
• Type of work and reasonable accommodations available across the employee lifecycle, including mechanisms in responding to reasonable accommodation requests and recommendations on setting up a system wide tracking system
• HR training provided to staff/ non-staff on disability related topics
• How agencies have reassigned or ensured opportunities for staff who have acquired an impairment in course of their work with the UN
• Assess the quality of engagement and outreach with OPDs, identify gaps, and suggest ways to improve collaboration and consultation with OPDs
• Number of staff with disabilities (current and in the past), including their functions and type of disabilities
• Providing a set of recommendations to improve the HR services, practices, and processes to create an inclusive environment for persons with disabilities and personnel with dependents with disabilities that can be progressively realised by the HR Working Group, OMT and UNCT, including priority, medium and long-term actions.

Note: many of the policies, programs and systems might be centralized (e.g. organization-wide policies on workplace injuries, reasonable accommodation, etc.) and apply to, but go beyond the country office context. The consultant needs to look at how centralized policies, programs and systems are practically operationalized at country level.

It is expected that in this process, the consultant will:

• If possible, engage with organisations of persons with disabilities in the assessment to better understand current best practices and expectations in terms of improving UN HR policies and practices in Montenegro
• Engage with UN Personnel with disabilities and personnel with dependents with disabilities to better understand their experiences while working for the UN.
• Utilise existing agency-specific HR reviews when possible and contextualise recommendations to country level.
• Ensure confidentiality of staff and addressing fears that staff may have in disclosing information

The output of this exercise is a baseline report of the current situation of the HR services, practices, and processes to create an inclusive environment for persons with disabilities and personnel with dependents with disabilities for persons with disabilities among UN Agencies in Montenegro, including actionable plan for improvements. The report is expected to have examples of best practices that could be replicated by UN agencies.

Consultant is expected to work in close consultation with the UN Operations Management Team, Human Resources Working Group, Disability Inclusion Project Team and the UN Focal Point for Disability Inclusion

The consultant is expected to have an in-depth discussion with UN HR Working Group, and HR officials of individual UN Agencies. Discussions with staff with disabilities or staff with dependents with disabilities could be arranged through individual UN Agencies.

A kick-off meeting will be arranged at the beginning of the project, validation/ dissemination workshop should be conducted to finalize the report at the end of the project.

Service provider is still required to submit a detailed methodology building on and further detailing beyond the existing scope of work, as specified above.

Deliverables and Timeline

The payment of the services (outputs) provided on the following schedule will be made with the following arrangement:

Deliverables

Estimated number of working days

Deadline for completion

Payment schedule

Workplan and Kick-off meeting with UN Agencies

3

20 December 2022

15%

Consultations with individual UN Agencies

15

30 January 2023

Draft report

4

15 February 2023

45%

Final report and workshop

3

15 February 2023

40%

The payment will be made to the consultant at each payment schedule, upon approval of the satisfactory submission of results. All dates are indicative. The consultancy should start as soon as possible. The selected service provider will be working closely with the UN HR Working Group consisting of UN colleagues in charge of HR services, the UN Focal Point for Disability Inclusion, Disability Inclusion Project Team.

Competencies

• Demonstrated tact and high sense of responsibility and discretion.
• Demonstrates integrity and high ethical standards.
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in any educational background

Experience:

• 12 years of experience for bachelor’s degree or 10 years for Master degree or 8 years for PhD
• At least 5 years of national experience and 3 years of experience of international experience in HR services for persons with disabilities.
• Have an extensive network with various Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs).
• Currently active in supporting an organization/ institutions/ enterprise for persons with disabilities.

Language:

• Excellent command of English language.

Other:

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
• Excellent writing skills

Criteria for selection:

Combined Scoring method will be used. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as: (i) responsive, compliant, acceptable, and (ii) having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

• Technical criteria weight - 70% (Background and education 10%; Relevant previous experience 20%; Substantial knowledge/Required competencies 30%; Required language 10%);
• Financial criteria weight - 30%.

Only offerors obtaining a minimum 490 points for technical criteria will be considered for the financial evaluation. For more information on procurement methodology for Individual Contractors, please refer to Procurement Notice.

Application procedure:

Interested applicants are requested to submit their applications by November 10, 2022 by using the Apply now button. The application should contain CV or P11 that can be downloaded at https://www.me.undp.org/content/montenegro/en/home/jobs.html. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file.

Only the short-listed applicants will be contacted and requested to submit a letter of interest including a price quotation indicating the lump sum (in EUR) requested for the work envisaged in the section "Description of Responsibilities".