STU/69th Council/21/012
13 April 2021

211 EX/5: Follow-up to decisions and resolutions adopted
by the Executive Board and the General Conference at their previous sessions

Part III – Human resources issues

B. Implementation of the Human Resources Management Strategy 2017-2022

COMMENTS BY THE UNESCO STAFF UNION (STU)

1. Workforce planning and skills inventory : the STU is favourable to a long-waited skills inventory within UNESCO. However, additional information on the way the skills mapping will be conducted would be useful to understand how HRM intends to carry on this exercise. Its outcomes will have to mainly inform the improvement of existing development programmes and provide UNESCO staff with additional learning opportunities to upgrade their skills, and not only being used to identify gaps to be filled by external recruitment. The STU will monitor carefully how this exercise will be conducted by HRM and how its results will be used by the Administration.

2. Recruitment : almost half of 2020 recruits were external. How to reconcile this with ‘Learning and development’ of existing UNESCO staff? The STU calls for additional training session concerning the new recruitment tool SuccessFactors as it is not a user-friendly nor intuitive tool and many challenges have been reported by recruiting managers.

3. Learning and Development :

   • How can the impact of these measures be measured?
   • “Career support and career development training to individuals and groups continued”, and what are the results?

4. Mobility :

   • The announced limited scope of the 2020-2021 mobility might pose problems of transparency as the criteria used are not clear and it seems this is left to the discretion of Sectors and HRM. The Unions are not consulted on proposed geographical moves and therefore cannot play their usual role in the Mobility review panel. The limitation of the exercise only to limited to Directors and Heads of Field Offices would imply movements only among FOs leaving apart HQ colleagues at P5 and D level, and therefore limiting the needed mobility between HQ and FOs.
   • 2021-2022 mobility: should avoid the mistakes done last year and be conducted fully taking into account ALL the IOS recommendations and in light of clear and objectives criteria. The preparation/update of the list of posts subject to mobility should be done in a transparent way and applying the same criteria across sectors to avoid unfair decisions and treatment.

5. UNESCO internship programme : it is mentioned in the document that this Programme should consist of ‘a pool of talented and diverse young professionals, including from non- and under-represented countries, for service at UNESCO’. Now, how is this possible without without putting in place a paid internship programme? How can talented students worldwide seize this opportunity if we don’t provide them with the means and financial support? Especially when it comes to internship in Paris which is too expensive for most of students to afford.

6. Performance management : the switch to an annual performance assessment cycle and to a mandatory mid-term review so far mean just doubling deadlines and increasing the burdens on staff and managers, especially if that is not done in parallel with a switch in mind-set. The hoped switch to ‘constructive, productive dialogue rather than a sterile, administrative exercise’ is not yet there and it will never be until also staff members will be allowed to provide a feedback on the performance of their supervisors.

7. Policy and process review : while appreciating the greater delegation of authority in human resources management introduced by the Director-General, the reform of the Internal Justice System and the revised Statutes of the Appeals Board are not in favor of Staff as presented in the document.

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