communications engineer

consultant

business intelligence analyst intern

United Nations Development Programme

Benefits

Consultants lack basic rights to social protection. While in 2018, with UNDP’s support, 31 million people gained access to basic services including healthcare, finance, housing and training,  UNDP’s Consultants working in its headquarters are not entitled to basic social security through their workplace. 
 
Consultants have no access to subsidized health insurance, no paid parental leave and childcare, paid sick and annual leave, pension fund benefits, disability benefits, education grants for children, housing benefits, and travel insurance when on mission, as well as no tax reimbursement (for US citizens or Greencard holders). This is a major challenge, especially in view of the lower pay rates that Consultants have to accept and very high living expenses in places like New York and Geneva. 

Lack of access to basic benefits has severe implications for Consultants’s well-being, as health insurance costs, childcare expenses, lack of housing subsidy, and no paid leave/sick days create major financial, physical and emotional stress. 

In some instances, for example, Consultants have had to travel to other states or even countries to receive medical treatment or give birth, as they cannot afford hospital expenses with their out-of-pocket health insurance in New York. 

There are also situations in which Consultants have contracted illnesses like malaria, foreign flu strains (the ‘conference bug’), deep vein thrombosis or other serious diseases directly or indirectly related to their work but are not paid for their sick leave upon return, nor additional medical expenses. 

Moreover, there are discriminatory practices where Consultants do not receive danger pay on top of their daily subsistence allowance when they travel to crisis countries as part of their work. In such situations, Consultants are supposed to cover their additional life insurance and medivac/medical at their own expense. 

Consultants also have to fly economy class while staff tend to fly business on long-distance flights and travel time is not counted as worktime for Consultants. While staff are able to take an additional day of rest if they choose to travel economy for long distances, Consultants are not afforded the same courtesy. But at the same time, Consultants are expected to perform at the same level as staff without having equal travel conditions.

Remuneration

Many Consultants in UNDP HQ tend to be paid below the market rate and well below the salaried pay scales that staff enjoy, while performing the same, if not more work. 

In many cases, the bidding process forces Consultants to undercut the competition and lower their rates to win on financial merits and secure a job contract. Moreover, they have to keep this lower rate continuously through every contract extension even if their job responsibilities have increased significantly. The Central Procurement Unit (CPU) blocks any attempt to raise daily rates and adjust them according to the performance in UNDP and the inflation rate. This is in contrast to staff who have regular incremental increases built into their salaries.

Furthermore, in many situations, Consultants have to work extra hours, including during the weekends, without being paid for additional working time. There were cases where Consultants were asked to be “team players” and work during holidays in order to have a representative from their team be physically present while staff members take leave.

Consultants are not systematically paid on time and often have to wait longer periods for the payments to be processed. In some cases, late payments resulted in delayed payments of student loans and monthly rent which led to overdraft fees.

Consultants often have to deal with breaks in their contracts and sometimes have to work without being paid after their contract expires while hoping for a backdating of the contract which may not happen. Consultants continue working as they are committed to their work and teams, but their dedication should not be exploited and abused.

The contracts system 

Consultants constantly face job insecurity with short-term contracts and no guarantee for renewal and in many cases last-minute renewals (sometimes up to the last day of the current contract). There are no standards for timely, fair and predictable contract renewals and little institutional thinking and commitments on retaining effective Consultants. This is particularly problematic for Consultants who are dependent on a G-4 visa to stay in the country.

There were situations where teams had to abandon several recruitments of Consultants due to long delays in the bureaucratic process. As a result, some great candidates were lost at critical times. In addition, panel interviews during the recruitment process are forced into 4 questions, rather than a meaningful conversation about skills and compatibility from both sides.

There are very limited career development opportunities for Consultants in UNDP and no standards to promote Consultants to new positions or improved contract modalities. Most of UNDP vacancies are consultancies with increasingly fewer staff positions, and Consultants are excluded from internal staff job postings. This gives a clear message that the organization embraces a “use-and-throw-away” ideology as a guiding human resource principle and does not attempt to create an equal workplace. 

All these practices are counter-productive and inefficient both for UNDP in view of its interest to attract and retain talented individuals and for Consultants who carry institutional knowledge, accrued technical expertise and key contacts. The emotional toll is also hard for some managers, as they often do not know which people in their teams they can count on to be around in the next months. 

The procurement process for renewing and extending Consultants’ contracts is ambiguous, often unfair and sometimes a waste of time for all the parties involved. It further has negative effects on the branding and reputation of the organization and discourages people from staying in the organization. Over time, UNDP runs the risk of losing its competitiveness as qualified candidates will seek jobs elsewhere. This sentiment is already arising.

Furthermore, terms of references (TORs) of Consultants do not correspond to the actual work performed by Consultants which often ends up being regular staff functions rather than specific time-bound and delivery-based consultancy to overcome staff shortages. This goes against the Programme and Operations Policies and Procedures but it is not enforced. 

Learning and training opportunities 

There are no or very limited systematic learning and training opportunities for Consultants in UNDP. These opportunities include professional advancement courses (e.g. professional / technical skills, leadership, language) and learning opportunities within teams.

There are no guidelines for evaluating performance and learning practices for Consultants. Many Consultants do not have an opportunity to discuss with managers their professional development and learning within the position. Some also lack regular feedback from their supervisors, which makes it difficult to grow and understand how to improve their performance. Consultants also do not have an opportunity to give formal feedback to their supervisors/managers on how they can better manage them. Lack of feedback and evaluation mechanisms reveals the lack of interest and commitment from UNDP towards Consultants and their development. 

Excluding Consultants from these opportunities effectively deprives the organization of the ability to develop the knowledge and skills of most of its talent. It also prevents Consultants from growing professionally and making even more significant contributions to UNDP. 

Engagement and inclusion

UNDP has committed to promoting inclusive and accountable institutions globally. Yet, they are rarely systematically included in staff and management discussions, including about working conditions and priorities with senior management; nor are they represented by the UN’s Staff Union. 

Consultants are often not allowed to participate in UNDP’s formal meetings and events on behalf of UNDP despite playing key roles and making major contributions to UNDP’s work. In addition, some Consultants were not able to participate in the latest global staff survey and thus could not share their views and experiences.

Accountability

UNDP management does not systematically provide an orientation to Consultants, including an introduction to UNDP and the UN system. Consequently, many Consultants have little knowledge of the organizational system, and of their rights and mechanisms in place, including those to report and deal with situations of abuse and harassment. While outsiders often perceive Consultants to represent UNDP, their limited knowledge of internal structures of the organization may lead to inadvertent misrepresentation. 

Managers have considerable power over the renewal/termination of long-term consultancy contracts. Therefore, even if reporting systems are in place, when the abuse comes from a direct manager, Consultants are afraid of reporting it due to their precarious situation. They are not certain whether the organization will support them if they make a claim and how it may impact their positions. This makes them particularly susceptible to mistreatment, harassment and abuse.

I joined UNDP in 1988 from the research firm RTI International where  was Senior Research Psychologist. My position at UNDP required extensive international travel, and substantive backstopping of around half a billion dollars of development programming in all world regions. UNDP had a management web in over 170 countries, and was usually the primary UN agency in each of these countries.Headquartered in New York City in the UN complex, this agency has a talented national and international staff today of  around 16,000. More info can be found at http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/operations/about_us/frequently_askedquestions.html

My own view of UNDP nets out as positive, although I have been an adviser to many young staff members at HQ and in the field who have expressed concerns re its HR functions, especially as these policies  relate to staff benefits and job security. Few however doubt the capacity of UNDP to bring together world-class talent in the design and implementation of development programs in any sector, or its long experience in these fields. I think UNDP, despite its problems, is the core agency in UN development work, and I have immense respect for what it attempts to do in some of the world's most difficult   arenas.

A typical day at work is an agenda of many items to be taken care of, and due to time-sensitive nature of our work, we have to produce as quickly as possible, to close open accounts, and start new ones.

I have learned a great deal from my my work, as every day is new experience to me.  The environment working in the United Nations Development agencies is great.  Most interesting is the work under pressure to fulfill emergency humanitarian needs, especially where natural disasters have devastated populations, destroying infrastructures such as livelihoods, housing, education, cultures and heritage, health establishments, etc.

I work with a great team.  We all understand and value the help we provide each others. We socialize after work, now and then, and we take short breaks to chat and talk in many interesting conversations.

We do however, encounter difficult situations, and they mostly deal with correction of errors that anyone could have made. This is serious as we deal with a variety of funds, and all spending documents must be correct, as we are accountable to donors and the beneficiaries of the funds.

This was a great internship opportunity. You can learn a lot or at least practice things you learn in politics graduate school (from a policy standpoint; connecting real problems with potential solutions). On the flip side, the hierarchical structure of the Regional Bureau of Africa significantly impedes progress and productivity.Most of its executive managers block projects and jobs just because they feel like it sometimes. Consultancy positions are generally assigned to friends and friends' friends - irrespective of competencies and performance of some interns and outsider applicants that really deserve it. RBA needs a reality check: its managers forget that Africa is still under-developped and corrupt because of people like them.

I worked as a consultant on leave from the Ministry of Agriculture to support the UNDP supported poverty alleviation project in Sri Lanka. My main functions were to develop and apply participatory poverty monitoring system for the project. I worked with many rural institutions and the project staff, learnt what was needed and to develop indicators to monitor poverty reduction. It was rewarding to work with the rural institutions and developed a system that is accepted by them and also used by the project. The challenge is to grasp the non-measurable indicators of poverty and convert them into measurable indicators in the M&E system.

treamlined recruitment processes to enhance candidate selection efficiency.
Coordinated onboarding activities to ensure smooth integration of new personnel.
Developed training materials and facilitated workshops for staff development initiatives.
Managed personnel records and maintained data accuracy in HR information systems.
Implemented employee engagement strategies to improve workplace morale and retention rates.
Analyzed feedback from staff surveys to drive continuous improvement in HR practices.
Collaborated with cross-functional teams to support organizational development projects effectively.
Filed paperwork, sorted, and delivered mail and maintained office organization

Follow-up on queries about UNESCO program by Member of Congress;
Liaises with UN Agencies, as well as The OAS, AIDB, The World Bank, The     IMF and the Academic Bodies;
Prepared Conferences, Seminars and Meetings;
Participated in the UN Washington Representatives Monthly meeting.
 Answered a wide range of queries from callers with a high degree of confidentiality and diplomacy and utmost of discretion and Jugement;
Managed the filing system of the Executive Director/Director-General by organizing the collection, management and availability of a large volume of correspondence and documentation and the safekeeping or confidential matters;.

A stressful work environment that requires proper time management to stay healthy as well as your family. Team work, dedication, and cordial work relations with colleagues, including supervisees, has helped me cope with the stress and enjoy my job. The hardest part of my job has been to sell my budget to Managers (Operations Management Team and United Nations Country Team) and have them fund the budget. Procurement, hence, of needed items/equipment is a major challenge.

Working at the United Nations is an extraordinary privilege and unique learning experience, deeply enriched by the daily collaboration with colleagues from every region of the world. The professional staff of UNDP and the other UN agencies and the UN Secretariat are as a group highly motivated, superbly educated, and genuinely committed to the UN's  ideals and misison.

Ethics at UNDP is fundamentally about keeping the interests of UNDP and the public we serve, ahead of our own self-interests. The organization established (and encourage), from the top of the organization down, an overall environment that supports ethical behavior and decision-making. UNDP instill in every staff member not only an obligation to do what's right in everything we do, but also expect that this culture will guide them when making any business and/or personal decisions.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Communications engineer 2 salaries reported	$1,000 per week
Consultant 1 salary reported	$27.00 per hour
Business intelligence analyst intern 1 salary reported	$1,000 per week

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