Boldly Going Where No One Has Gone Before: Geeta Narayan

UNICEF’s Journey on Organizational Culture

By Geeta Narayan

“A Culture Advisor? What in the world is that?” This was my first thought when I learned about a new position in UNICEF that was being created in response to the report by the Independent Task Force on Workplace Gender Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, Harassment and Abuse of Authority (ITF), which came out in June 2019. The ITF report, together with other reports commissioned by the Executive Director in 2018 and 2019 [i.e. Independent Panel Review of UNICEF’s Response to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse; Morgan Lewis Review of UNICEF’s Sexual Harassment Investigations] and staff-led reports such as UNICEF in the Mirror, marked an important moment in UNICEF’s history – a moment when we realized we had to change how we worked together.

This was new ground for UNICEF, and it was not easy. Employees were not sure if speaking up and out was worth it – would things really change this time? Managers were uneasy about what the changes might mean for their ability to manage their teams – would it disempower them from making the tough decisions needed? Some questioned the reports, or were unsure about the new – or renewed – focus on living our core values, as well as delivering results for children.

But one thing was sure: we knew we had to go there. Our own reports, the voices of our employees, the changing societal attitudes towards harassment and abuse, and the moral imperative of being a rights-based organization required us to take action. And here was the amazingly simple insight that emerged: improving UNICEF’s organizational culture is not only good for our people but also it is in service to our mandate for children. By becoming an organization that more explicitly respects, values, and empowers all its people, UNICEF is becoming a stronger, more effective organization delivering results for children.

We were one of the very first UN agencies to embark on this journey. Even now, two years later, we are one of the few agencies that have full-time, dedicated capacity on organizational culture. This is an example of UNICEF once again venturing forth in a new area – not a programmatic one but a managerial one this time.

We were challenged again to go further, in 2020-21, with the rise of the global racial justice movement, and the call by our employees to look at ourselves critically and examine racism and discrimination in UNICEF, especially racism against Black colleagues. For the first time ever, the Global Management Team discussed racism and discrimination in September 2020. We heard the voices of Black colleagues talking about their painful experiences of racism in UNICEF. We heard stories from colleagues with disabilities who were treated as ‘less than’ simply because of their disability. Thanks to the work of the internal Task Team on Anti-Racism and Discrimination, we now have a set of bold and comprehensive actions (100+ of them!) to promote more diversity and inclusion in UNICEF.

Looking back at our organizational culture journey of the past two years, I am proud of a few major innovations that represent the best of UNICEF and our people. First, the Humans of UNICEF peer to peer staff appreciation programme has been a huge hit with our employees! We have had over 1,500 colleagues nominated for living our core values, in just the first year or so (the programme was launched in February 2020). The vast majority of the nominations are from three regions – ESAR, SAR, and MENAR. The programme has been inspiring. In the words of some of the nominated Humans: ““this recognition reinforces my willingness to promote UNICEF values in every aspect;” “What a privilege to be a member of this group and what an honour! I am sure UNICEF staff is a great example of Humans of the world and I am proud to work with all our colleagues and be a part of our UNICEF community.”

Second, we developed and launched the first-ever Pulse Check on workplace culture, a 9-question quick survey for all UNICEF employees, running every 6 months in every office. The data from the Pulse Check is available within 2 days of the survey’s closing date, and is available to all of UNICEF online via the Office Performance Scorecards in Insight. The data will also be automatically included in the PERs of Representatives, under People Management. To help offices take action on the Pulse Check data, we have prepared a Step by Step Guide, and Tip Sheets with concrete suggestions, good practices, and learning resources. The Pulse Check is a way to ‘measure what matters’ – to make organizational culture as important a metric in UNICEF as outstanding DCT or fundraising targets.

So, after two years in this job as “Culture Advisor,” do I know what it means yet? Yes! In brief, it means making UNICEF the absolute best place to work for all our people. This is what I’m doing, what we are all doing as members of the UNICEF family, each and every day. And by working together as one UNICEF team that respects, enables and empowers each other, we can make the biggest difference for the children we serve.

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