Organizational Improvement Bulletin : Hannan Sulieman

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to share with you the latest edition of the Organizational Improvement Bulletin  containing updates on the priority change initiatives of the Organizational Improvement effort.

Please continue to share your questions and comments by writing to improvementlab@unicef.org.

With warm regards,

Hannan


This bulletin provides updates on the priority change initiatives within the broader Organizational Improvement efforts, with a common focus on accelerating results for children.

PROGRAMME ACCELERATION

The Humanitarian Review

(Lead: EMOPS)

A year into implementing the Humanitarian Review recommendations, key highlights include:

▪ Flexible delivery modalities: UNICEF’s continued investment during the past two years in flexible response modalities, such as cash-based response, as recommended by the Humanitarian Review, has led to results for children being achieved more quickly and efficiently. Building on the experience gained in the Yemen response, the recent cash response in Afghanistan was set up and running within three weeks, and enabled continuity in critical, lifesaving services, with a reduction in response time by approximately 75%.

▪ Revised policy and procedure to guide humanitarian action: The rollout of the revised Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action has been a key pillar of the Humanitarian Review. The new Emergency Procedures, now approved, provide a package of simplified, minimum actions required for all offices responding to humanitarian situations, and will be rolled out alongside the Core Commitments in 2022.

▪ Human Resources in emergencies: The development of Frontlines has led to a growing global community of UNICEF personnel interested in working in humanitarian contexts.

Nearly 3,000 people have registered on the talent-management platform so far and as of Dec 2021 109 deployments had been facilitated.

▪ Humanitarian learning: UNICEF has developed a learning framework to guide Humanitarian learning within the organization. The framework identifies key competencies UNICEF staff, working in humanitarian action, should have to consistently provide high quality humanitarian assistance. The framework also includes the development of key training initiatives, such as the Humanitarian Leadership Workshops, that will support UNICEF staff to develop their knowledge and skills in these key competencies. Further training initiatives to support staff and implementing partners, working at the frontlines of humanitarian responses, are planned for 2022. In addition an updated set of online learning resources are now available including the revised Core Commitments for Children, Gender Equality in Preparedness and Humanitarian Action, Accountability to Affected Populations, and Humanitarian Cash Transfers.

▪ Strengthening of partnerships: UNICEF and UNHCR have established a partnership to improve systems and services of assistance in refugee settings, through the inclusion of refugee children and their families in national systems and services with a focus on three priority areas – education; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); and child protection. UNICEF is also exploring the possibility of a similar agreement with IOM to support “children on the move.”

▪ Improving operations in complex and high-threat environments: The UNICEF Humanitarian Access Field Manual was finalized in 2021, providing guidelines for Engagement with Armed Non-State Actors, for use by UNICEF and partners.

▪ Risk management in humanitarian settings: One of the Humanitarian Review’s recommendations was to create risk-appetite and risk-tolerance statements, inclusive of humanitarian considerations, for the organization. This was achieved in 2021 to complement the work already done in relation to risk-informed programming. The development of these statements will strengthen decision-making around risk in programming and operations, especially in conflict settings where children are often harder to reach. (More details are available in Section 2 of the Emergency Procedures Guidance Handbook.)

The Organization has committed to implement the full set of 70 recommendations by end-2025. UNICEF presented a progress report to the Executive Board’s first annual session in 2022. The Executive Board commended UNICEF for its continued transparent efforts to improve humanitarian action and renewed its support for the Humanitarian Review.

Actions planned for 2022 include developing the human resources strategy to build, retain and manage talent for humanitarian action from within the Organization. The implementation of the Humanitarian Review will also include improving the collection and use of data for better preparedness, stronger evidence based decision-making and risk management, focusing on partnering with research institutions and the private sector at regional and global levels around child-focused knowledge in humanitarian action. In addition, UNICEF will invest to ensure that the knowledge and skills acquired by UNICEF and its partners during the COVID-19 pandemic can be used in other public health emergency responses.

For more details, please see here.

Reimagined Programme

(Lead: PG)



The Programme Group (PG) continues to enhance UNICEF’s technical authority, thought leadership and global technical leadership by streamlining its structure into seven Programme Teams with anchored teams within, delegating authorities and minimizing internally driven management processes.

The Global Technical Teams (GTT) were launched in December 2021. The GTT approach brings together organizational assets to set global programmatic priorities and elevate quality programming across all country contexts. As of February 2022, five seed starter GTTs have been activated – Gender, Social and Behavior Change, Nutrition, Education, and WASH. An iterative process is in place to develop this new way of working. Each GTT focuses on clearly defining the challenges to be addressed, sketching solutions and desired outcomes, developing a prototype to address the identified challenge, testing and validating proposed solutions against desired outcomes, and performance and lessons learned. In Q1 2022, workplans will be developed for each seed starter, with work expected to begin in March 2022. A light evaluation framework has been developed to assess the performance of the GTT and an online learning repository. Deloitte will support PG with secretariat and methodological support throughout 2022.

A less structured approach will be used for developing the Multi-Functional Technical Team (MFTT), capitalizing on existing mechanisms in certain programmatic areas. MFTTs are proposed to be established in response to a time-bound multi sectoral need (current and past examples may include UASC in Afghanistan coordination, the Europe migration crisis, family friendly policies) or to support a specific country level process (UNSCDF, CPD, etc.).

PG’s improvement efforts also involve streamlining operational transactions, reducing duplications, increasing support to Programme quality and overall strengthened programme excellence. Central to the change has been the reduction in transaction processing time through the recently established Programme Operations Hub (POH), with recent accomplishments including the following:

▪ Launched Procurement Card (P-Cards) in Q4 2021 for low-value procurement up to $10,000.

▪ Instituted a more streamlined process for one-time vendor accounts.

▪ Centralized the consultant contracting process, with post selection processes centralized within POH.

▪ Soft-launched a project on direct invoice submission to the GSSC, with one PG pilot team (further rollout to other teams expected soon).

In 2022, PG looks to achieve additional transaction efficiencies in the areas of integration of consultant contracting process with EMOPS; institutional contracts (pre-contracting process) streamlining; and low- value contracts, to result in more time for colleagues to focus on programme support and accelerating results for children.

Simplified Planning

(Lead: DAPM)

Improvement of the Country Programme planning process is underway to make it more efficient (lighter) and more effective, led by DAPM. Co-creation is taking place with Regional and Country Offices on the substantive changes, as well as with other parts of HQs (EMOPS, PG and PFP) to ensure integration of humanitarian interventions, private sector engagement and risk-informed programming.

Four Country Offices (Brazil, Ghana, India and Kyrgyzstan) are ‘pioneering’ and informing the redesign of the country planning process. A meeting in Budapest in early-February 2022, convened by DAPM, provided an opportunity to discuss and reflect on the experiences so far by the India and

Kyrgyzstan Country Offices to further inform the process redesign and the digitalization of specific aspects to be developed by the vendor.

The new Country Programme planning process, and accompanying guidance, will be ready for rollout across UNICEF by the end of 2022.

For more information, please contact Rudi Luchmann, Chief of Programme Guidance Unit, DAPM.

BUSINESS INNOVATION & EFFICIENCY

Reimagining Business Models

(Lead: Cross-cutting)

Recommendations from Phase I of the “Reimagining Business Models” Project are being implemented including a Review of UNICEF’s Accountability Framework, a Review of the Resource Allocation Process, and the launch of Global Technical Teams and Multi-functional teams.

▪ Review of UNICEF’s Accountability Framework (Lead: OED): The Office of the Chief of Staff in OED is leading the process to update the 2009 Executive Board Paper, Report on the accountability system of UNICEF. A small team is being convened to develop and implement a roadmap to guide the consultation, drafting and presentation of the accountability report to the September 2022 Executive Board session. The paper will reflect feedback collected throughout the organizational improvement process, especially through consultations during the Reimagine Business Models exercise, as well as observations from the OIAI advisory report.

▪ Review of Resource Allocations (Lead: PG, EMOPS, DFAM): The Programme Group is preparing to issue updated Thematic Guidance that defines principles for the Global, Regional and Country Thematic Funds after consultation with Regional Offices. Some of the proposed simplifications to the guidance include the creation of country and regional flexible windows, clarity in the allocation criteria for Global Thematic Funds (GTF), and the elimination of the ACT system for Global allocations. These simplifications reduce errors in allocations, minimize the bureaucracy involved in the process, and make the allocation of funds faster.

Among the five areas for Business Process Simplification, identified by “Task Team 3” in 2020:

▪ DAPM has made the most progress on programme planning, monitoring and reporting, including simplifications in programme planning and strategic analysis, programme monitoring and implementation, organizational performance management, and organizational learning and knowledge management. Many of the simplifications are enabled through the digitization of the programme process, including the introduction of harmonized platforms, systems and tools that will be used by all UNICEF Country Programmes. These programme simplifications alone have the potential to save over two million staff hours over four years. Additional programme simplifications are planned throughout 2022 including the digitization of implementation partner management processes.

▪ DHR is exploring the option to eliminate the individual contractor modality for non deliverable specific assignments, instead promoting the use of Temporary Appointments (TAs) to address temporary resourcing needs.

In December 2021, business owners agreed on a set of actions that would be implemented to move forward the “Game-Changer” recommendations proposed by the “Group of 12” and endorsed by the Organizational Improvement Core Group (as part of Phase II of the “Reimagining Business Models” Project). These actions will help to strengthen UNICEF business models and enable the more effective and efficient achievement of results for children.

Agreed actions will be undertaken within the existing organizational improvement efforts. Please read the related message from the Deputy Executive Director-Management to the Global Management Team. Implementation plans to achieve the “Game-Changer” recommendations are available here.

For more details, please see here.

Headquarters Efficiencies Initiative

(Lead: OED/Deputy Executive Directors)

In August 2021, UNICEF launched the Headquarters Efficiencies Initiative (HQEI) to assess how the Organization’s HQs presence, resources and capacities – across teams, functions and geographies – could work more efficiently to contribute to the achievement of results for children. Between September and early-February 2022, the HQEI Project Core Team led a consultative process of working with all HQs Divisions/Offices on three components of the initiative.

Using a common set of criteria and methodology, the project team supported the Divisions/Offices to undertake interim self-assessments to see which of their “Capabilities” could potentially be relocated to lower-cost locations in the Global South that offer more efficiencies. (A “Capability” is defined as “a combination of staff, financial resources, technology and delegated authority that has been assigned the responsibility and accountability to perform certain specified functions/tasks and achieve specified results.”)

The second component was the development of a shortlist of potential locations in the Global South (where UNICEF is already present) and existing HQs locations (such as Budapest, Florence and Valencia) where HQs Capabilities could be relocated and capitals in donor countries for UNICEF’s partnership function. The project team developed various options for consideration, and KPMG was brought in for further validation.

The third component has been to build on the experiences of the Global Shared Service Centre and the Geneva Common Service Unit for a potential establishment of a New York HQ-based Central Service Centre that would provide Divisions and Offices with a suite of standard transactional services in the areas of Administration, Finance, HR, ICT, Procurement and Programme support. A draft concept paper is being further developed under the lead of DFAM and GSSC.

Potentially shifting existing teams would impact colleagues in those teams. The Division of Human Resources developed a Staff Support Strategy for the HQEI, applicable to all Divisions/Offices, to assist colleagues with the utmost care and consideration. (Additional information on the Strategy is available on DHR’s dedicated site.)

The Global PBR, meeting in January/February 2022, reviewed each Division’s/Office’s interim proposal regarding relocation; the proposal for new HQ locations in the Global South; and the proposal for the Central Service Centre; as well as the HQEI governance and implementation architecture. Notes of the meeting are being shared with all Division/Office Directors.

Divisions/Offices will be asked to delve more deeply into their interim proposals – for identifying positions for relocation – which will be reviewed when the PBR reconvenes in April/May. The PBR recommendations will be shared with the Executive Director for review and decisions.

For more details, please see here.

Office of Innovation Transformation

(Lead: OoI)

The Office of Innovation’s (OoI) central business unit relocated to Stockholm during Q3 of 2021, with an initial small team (“swift team”) of staff sharing offices with the Swedish Committee for UNICEF. The full team’s relocation is planned for Q2 2022.

To complement the central unit, negotiations with select Member States are ongoing to establish a network of nine global innovation hubs responsible for various thematic specializations.

Two of the nine hubs – for Innovative Finance and Learning Innovations – are being established in Finland. The Learning Innovation Hub is building a network for the architects of the future of learning to make it a fascinating adventure for every child, expanding the possibilities for the

future. The Innovative Finance hub is focused on unlocking the US$40 trillion market of financing to drive priorities for children under the SDGs. Recruitment for an OoI swift team, which will relocate to Helsinki during Q1 2022 and share offices with the Finnish Committee for UNICEF, is underway.

Discussions with the government of Denmark to potentially host the WASH Innovations hub is expected to be concluded in Q1 2022. The WASH Innovation hub will become a global home for building, accelerating and scaling transformational solutions for a WASH secure future.

The network of issue-focused innovation hubs works closely with Country Office, connecting their local innovation ecosystems to global ones – such as those in Stockholm, Helsinki and Copenhagen. Such collaborations will be key in designing, testing and implementing innovative solutions with end-users, including children and young people in low- and middle-income countries.

For more information, please contact Tanya Accone, Senior Adviser, OoI.

Transition & Transformation of the ICT Function

(Lead: ICTD)

ICTD Digital Core’s transition to Valencia, Spain is progressing as planned, with 2021 activities implemented on schedule. As of early February, 50 International Professional staff are stationed in Valencia. Once the exercise is complete in September 2022, about 60 IP staff will have relocated from NYHQ and more than 30 new staff members will have been recruited.

A concerted effort by hiring managers to improve the gender balance in the Division led to increasing the ratio of female colleagues at P5 level to 42% from 22%.

The ICT infrastructure team is building the Data Center and related global infrastructure, with the aim to modernize operational efficiency and effectiveness, strengthen global cloud infrastructure and video conferencing for remote work and business continuity, and advance UNICEF’s information security. A key component in the new location is the close relationship with the United Nations Global Service Centre (UNGSC), which hosts the UN base in Valencia.

ICTD’s Digital Center of Excellence will be staffed and operational in Nairobi, Kenya as of April 2022, as a field-facing unit for technology for development and programme effectiveness.

For more details, please see here.

PARTNERSHIP STRENGTHENING

Partnership Acceleration & Adaptation

(Lead: PFP and PPD)

Programming in high-income countries – A stocktaking meeting between HQs Divisions Directors, Regional Offices and the Standing Group of National Committees took place on 14 February 2022, with participants assessing the progress achieved so far and providing a steer for 2022. Work will continue incrementally, building on the experience of the six practice countries and integrating more proactively the ongoing work to develop the new SOP for emergency preparedness and response in countries with a National Committee presence. The participatory review of the National Committees’ response to COVID-19 is almost completed and will be disseminated in the coming weeks. A mapping exercise to identify the priority thematic areas in High Income Countries (COs and National Committees) has been finalized, based on an analysis of corporate results and individual joint strategic plans. Facilitated knowledge exchange across UNICEF in HICs – including National Committees and COs – is being more deliberately promoted, including through the creation of Communities of Practice and informal networks.

Digital Transformation – Identified as one of the cross-cutting “change strategies” in the UNICEF Strategic Plan 2022-25, Digital Transformation will accelerate UNICEF’s resource mobilization, partnership, advocacy, and communication work. Digital is now the largest channel for acquiring new donors and a digital donor signs up to UNICEF every 29 seconds (through digital fundraising, 2020 saw the doubling of digital donors to over 1 million). The plan going forward is to acquire 4.1 million new digital donors and strengthen relationships with existing donors to generate US$ 1.3 billion of digital income during 2022-2025.

With a focus on jointly defining and delivering digital transformation goals, the NatCom Standing Group and PFP have convened a Digital Community of Practice. This group will be open to all of UNICEF with a focus on representatives driving fundraising, supporter engagement, communications and advocacy, and finance and operations. A Steering Group of 12 cross-divisional representatives from National Committees, COs and HQs has been convened.

For more details, please see here.

PEOPLE & CULTURE

Organizational Culture Change

(Lead: OED/Culture, Diversity and Inclusion Team)

UNICEF’s journey to improve its organizational culture continues and is becoming stronger with a renewed focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.

A new Culture, Diversity and Inclusion team is being established in the Office of the Executive Director (OED). With dedicated staff on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), monitoring and evaluation, social and behaviour change, and disability inclusion, the team will oversee and coordinate all work on DEI organization-wide, including the monitoring of the implementation of the recommendations of the internal Task Team on Anti-Racism and Discrimination, as well as the ITF report.

Over the past few months, many actions have been taken at global, Regional and Country Office levels on several aspects of DEI. For example, many Country Offices have participated in dedicated first conversations on DEI, facilitated by the Culture and Diversity team. The Division of Global Communications and Advocacy’s (GCA) Anti-Racism Action Group developed and rolled out GCA’s Zero-Tolerance Pledge on Anti-Racism. Among Regional Offices, ECARO has developed a regional strategy on DEI, which is UNICEF’s first such regional strategy. MENARO has developed “12 Principles of Inclusion”, tailoring DEI to the local context. For more on these and other actions relating to DEI, please see here.

Another important step towards a more inclusive and values-based UNICEF has been the support provided to UNICEF’s Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) – Gender Push, Young UNICEF, UNGLOBE, United Nations People of African Descent (UNPAD), “Una idea Latinoamericana” (Latin American group at UNICEF), Network of Employees with Disabilities, and the Support Group of Employees with Children with Disabilities. These employee-led groups aim to build connections amongst our colleagues who share a particular affinity, personal/organizational characteristic, or advocacy cause. For the first time ever, funding has been provided to these groups to help them expand their outreach and engagement to employees, and to mobilize more effectively as advocates for greater inclusion at UNICEF.

In Q4 2021, the Culture and Diversity team rolled out UNICEF’s second Pulse Check on Workplace Culture. The survey closed with a 69% global response rate. You can take a look at your office’s results and compare them with your Q2 results through this link. The Culture and Diversity team is again offering support to Offices in the Pulse Check follow-up process with Pulse Check ‘clinics’ for offices upon request. In addition, the team has developed resources, including a step-by-step guide and Tip Sheets, to help offices to take action and to respond to the Pulse Check data.

UNICEF reported to the Executive Board on 9 February 2022 on its efforts on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, organizational culture, and DEI. The Board appreciated the progress made on culture and diversity, with Member States specifically commending the Pulse Check and the renewed momentum on DEI including anti-racism and disability inclusion.

For more details, please see here.

Workforce Planning & Review of Work Modalities

(Lead: DHR)

The Division of Human Resource’s work on work modalities is further progressing, including with limited pilot tests, and advances in the workforce skills mapping tool development. Experiences so far feed into lessons-learned analyses and design improvements.

For more details, please see here.

DHR Transition & Transformation

(Lead: DHR)

The Division of Human Resources (DHR) concluded its location analysis which would enable it to be more centrally located and closer to the majority of UNICEF staff. The Division submitted a proposal for relocation to the Global PBR in January 2022.

Beyond the HR strategy, DHR is reviewing its organizational design. The Division partnered with Deloitte in the fall of 2021. Deloitte provided a series of recommendations on the Global HR Delivery Model and the Talent Management Framework. DHR and the OneHR community are currently reviewing the recommendations, in consultation with key stakeholders and staff representatives, to prepare its Transformation proposal. The proposal will be presented to the PBR in the spring of 2022.

DHR has developed the business case for the HR Transition and Transformation initiative. DHR is working towards building “an agile, people-centred HR community that actively works with its partners to accelerate results for children.” DHR is planning to engage its key stakeholders, in and outside the OneHR community, on the business case, in the coming months. The Division will also develop and adopt the new HR strategy, based on its four strategic objectives and seven enablers.

For more details, please see here.

Questions or comments about what’s in this bulletin?

Please write us at improvementlab@unicef.org.

❖ “Lean As A Habit” (from Industry Week)

❖ “5 Ways to Lead in an Era of Constant Change” (TED Talk by Jim


… 

WORTH CHECKING OUT 

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Hemerling)

❖ “6 Change Management Gurus and Their Lessons for Leaders” (from Business Enterprise Mapping)

❖ “Carol Dweck: A Summary of Growth and Fixed Mindsets” (from Farnam Street)

❖ “How Many People Are Really Needed in a Transformation?” (from McKinsey & Company)

❖ Please see here for more resources & learning materials…

This Bulletin was produced by the Organizational Design and Improvement Lab. More details about the Organizational Improvement efforts are available in the latest FAQs. Remember to check out the ‘Reimagining UNICEF’ community on Yammer. To view all previous editions, please click here.

The Organizational Design and Improvement Lab (ODIL) was established in January 2020 to support the Deputy Executive Director for Management, as Chair of the Core Group on Organizational Improvement, to coordinate, monitor, and oversee change initiatives. The

Lab serves as an overarching support structure that provides technical assistance, guidance, tools and advice to business owners in managing and leading organizational change processes, ensuring that these are coordinated and implemented in line with a common set of change management principles and mutually reinforced across UNICEF.

United Nations Children’s Fund | Organizational Design and Improvement Lab

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