Strategic Workforce Planning Consultant - Regional Bureau for Eastern Africa

JOB TITLE: Strategic Workforce Planning Consultant

TYPE OF CONTRACT: Consultant

UNIT/DIVISION: Workforce Planning & Strategy Branch, Human Resources

DUTY STATION (City, Country): Nairobi, Kenya

DURATION: 11 months

BACKGROUND:

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger globally, part of the United Nations. At WFP, we are driven and defined by our mission to fight world hunger, save lives, feed people’s dreams of a brighter future, reduce risk and help enable people, communities and countries meet their own food and nutrition needs. More than 19,000 people work worldwide to ensure the most vulnerable, particularly women and children, can access the nutritious food they need.

Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) practice launched in WFP in 2020, enables WFP to purposefully plan for, manage and prepare its future workforce to respond effectively to the increasing demands of the organization within a globally complex environment.

You will be part of a dynamic team, helping connect our strategy with our operational needs in terms of people, skills and capabilities required to deliver on our important mandate.

WFP offers life-changing job opportunities you are unlikely to find in other organizations. Working at WFP will give you the opportunity to work beyond your expectations, to be enriched by truly meaningful work and improve your growth and professional expertise. For additional information, visit: www.wfp.org

ROLE:

This role supports the design, delivery and monitoring of workforce plans and structural reviews and works in close collaboration with internal and external stakeholders, from WFP’s management, to functional subject matter experts, HR colleagues and external experts.

This position will be part of the HR Workforce Planning and Strategy Branch outposted to the WFP Regional Bureau Nairobi (RBN). Priorities can often change in a fast-paced environment like WFP, so this role includes, but is not limited to, the following accountabilities:

ACCOUNTABILITIES:

1. Act as a Subject Matter Expert on Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) and Organizational Alignment Reviews (OA), conducting SWP and/or OA exercises for the Country Offices based on established procedures, incorporating the results of functional and global workforce plans.
2. Through desktop reviews and stakeholder meetings, assess the strategic direction of Country Offices as well as possible future scenarios and derive insights into the implications of these on the workforce using a strategic workforce planning methodology and software.
3. Identify and analyze the current workforce and its relevant characteristics, including current skills of the workforce through skills gap analyses, talent reviews and/or functional talent assessments.
4. Assess future demand for talent based on strategic direction, and future supply of internal talent through data analysis. Project supply versus demand models for the Country Offices and identify gaps.
5. Work with HR colleagues and management to develop a strategy to close gaps by identifying appropriate workforce and/or talent management solutions to bridge the gaps over short, medium, and long-term including costs, timeframes, and benefits.
6. Analyze Country Office current organizational set-ups, structures, workforce composition and design organizational structures based on the workforce planning results.
7. Provide guidance and advice on formulating detailed implementation plans to ensure that the gaps between the current and future structures and workforce can be smoothly bridged.
8. Prepare appropriate communications materials to keep all stakeholders informed of SWP and structure alignment progress, to request action and to build engagement.
9. Monitor the implementation of Country Office workforce plans through the management of project plans, conduct lessons-learned exercises and contribute to the refining of workforce planning practices across WFP.
10. Coordinate and streamline the collection, interpretation and validation of workforce data and its analysis ensuring that quality standards and data privacy compliance are maintained.
11. Establish knowledge management systems, including best practices, benchmarks and knowledge repositories on Strategic Workforce Planning and organizational structures, sharing them proactively with the counterparts within the SWP team.
12. Drive the efforts on creating awareness on SWP and OA processes and methodology as appropriate among established stakeholders (HR community, Leadership of the Regional Bureau and Country Offices). Lead capacity building/strengthening efforts among designated HR community in relation to organizational alignments and structural reviews.
13. Other, as required.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Education: University Degree in Human Resources, Statistics, Economics, Business Administration or other related field.

Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of experience in Human Resources, Consulting or relevant post-graduate experience with excellent analytical, communication and project management skills.
• At least 3 years of international experience either working abroad or in an international environment, as part of a multicultural team.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Strong track record on organizational design and change management
• Strong analytical, critical thinking, planning and problem-solving skills
• Strong attention to detail
• Ability to handle ambiguity and change, as well as balance multiple priorities
• Customer orientation
• Excellent written/verbal communication skills
• Ability to build effective relationships across and outside the organization, at all levels
• Proficiency with Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint
• High level of organization to compile and derive insights from data, working with multiple sources and coping with rapidly changing information
• Knowledge of workforce planning tools and data analytics/visualization/ reporting technology is desirable

Languages: Excellent command of English - fluency (level C) in oral and written English is essential. Good level of French and/or any other UN language is a plus.

Ability to travel: Mainly within countries assigned to the RBN region and others, as required.

Application Deadline: 13 March 2023