Recruitment Issues: Published on 07 Dec 2006

Yesterday, I spent most of my day in organising training program for our staff and contractors who are installing 'Septic Tanks' for the new houses we built. I have organised it in a 'Participatory' method which was facilitated by an experienced 'Project Manager' from other department Rifaid. Since I cannot speak and train in Bahasa, I prepared detailed module, power point presentations etc., and got it translated before asking our Specialist- Luthfi Basit Sew to take the sessions. I was there through out the day to observe and clarify doubts if any.

The training went extremely well, and a lot of dicussion was generated between the staff and Contractors. The time was not enough, and they were able to cover only 50% of the intended syllabus. This was partly due to the facilitator who is not fully aware which part of the module is more important.

I had to rush back to the office at 4:30 for conducting an Interview for the post of 'Program Manager- WATSAN'. This is an expat position and the candidate works some where in Africa. But there was some mess up with the HR due to some misunderstanding of the time difference, and the Interview was shifted to the next day, that is today at 1:00 PM

Later, I had a tough meeting with HR regarding the extension of Contract for one of my Key staff. There were no issues with the extension, but I had to make tough negotiations with them. The matter is still not resolved, but will be discussed with him soon. If we don't have substantial increase in his pay, not only there is a risk of loosing the staff, but also his salary will become a stumbling block for others to consider joining the team.

Currently I am continuously struggling to hire managerial and technical staff for our project. 6 managers and 3 specialists are required for various WATSAN positions. I am some how able to recruit lower level staff, but not in senior positions. Our HR had discussions with several other NGOs, and its the same situation every where.

Now we are putting our advertisement in several news papers across Indonesia, and I need to find some time today to finalise the advt. sent by our HR officer before sending off to press. So most likely, I would be able to conduct Interviews only after I come back from Christmas Break

Today we are having SMT (Senior Management Team) meeting from 10:00- 12:00 to discuss about various issues related to Operations. The SMT will be chaired by the 'Tsunami Director' and attended by heads of various departments. All the policies and procedures will be disussed in the SMT before the Director finally approves it.