Development Advisor

We particularly encourage applications from disabled and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) candidates, as MSF-Brazil is an organization committed to promoting inclusion and diversity.

 ABOUT THE POSITION 

OBJECTIVES:

The Development Advisor (DA) plays a pivotal role in the employee’s sense of belonging to MSF and MSF’s need to build a healthy HR pyramid that fulfils the organisation’s needs of today and tomorrow.

Therefore, the DA is the employee’s partner to support and plan his/her growth as a professional and an individual. This means that the DA will help him/her to:

• Clarify long term ambitions and professional goals.

• Identify strengths, improvement areas and identify current development opportunities.

• Identify the right means of development formalised in an individual development plan in line with MSF People Development vision and strategy. To implement his/her development plan by taking concrete action where needed.

• Gain insight into and align with MSF’s organisational needs of today and tomorrow.

• Start a mission/job fully informed.

• Be compliant to MSF’s internal regulations.

The Development Advisor is also pivotal in MSF’s need to have the right person with the right competence in the right place at the right time, by:

• Aligning individual development (plans) to the needs of the organisation of today and tomorrow.

• Suggesting missions/jobs to candidates and candidates for missions/jobs to pool managers that will lead to a likely success for MSF and the employee.

• Gathering and sharing information on employee’s potential and performance that will allow identifying the appropriate individual development strategy.

• Making or facilitating efficient and fair decisions on means of development. For this Development Advisors will have a common approach (criteria and tools) to differentiate development investment.

• Registering and continuously updating all information on the employee that helps to analyze the current population (“offer”), facilitates the matching process and finding other development opportunities and respects the employee’s privacy.

RESPONSABILITIES:

• Responsible for facilitating individual and organisational development, being the reference point for all international staff to discuss their professional development within MSF and their professional growth in general.

• Encourage the employee to reflect on ambitions on a longer term (also after MSF), motivation and commitment, strengths and improvement areas and to translate this in short and long term career and development actions that create a win-win for the employee and the organization. The individual development plan serves as a guide for the employee and is shared with the Pool Manager.

• Hold development conversations with the employee to discuss, understand and enrich the development plan. The added value of the DA will be in the:

- Coaching of the employee, i.e. provoking in depth reflection, but also giving feedback on how the organization perceives the employee’s performance and potential.

- Guidance in the means of development that MSF can offer. Apart from the support by the DA, the means of development are based on the MSF Development Strategy.

- Establishment of concrete individual plans that creates a win-win between the employee’s and the organization’s ambitions.

- Maintain regular contact with field workers before, during and after missions. Although concerns on missions are addressed via line management and other channels, the DA is a person of trust to discuss issues during the course of engagement with MSF.

The DA will contribute to the building of the HR pyramid of MSF by:

• Giving input to the organization on the employee’s future potential (e.g. ambition, competences, commitment to MSF) in order to give MSF insight in its current population and to identify the areas where action is needed in order to fulfill future needs.

• Helping the employee to draw up a development plan that integrates the employee’s profile (incl. performance and potential) and takes into account development tools the employee into his/her plans.

• Having regular contact with the pool manager who will give update on current and future needs of the pool.

• The DA is involved once a year by the pool manager in the analysis of the pool and the development of an action plan to make sure MSF’s future needs will be fulfilled.

In order to make this work, the DA ensures that employee career data (e.g. availability dates, individual development plan, evaluations, debriefing notes, etc) are registered and up-to-date in order to allow HR colleagues to use these data efficiently.

Also in case training, coaching, etc is agreed with the candidate and line management, the DA makes sure that the proper enrollment procedure is initiated.

MATCHING WITH ALL OPERATIONAL CENTERS

The DA is responsible for:

• Ensure maximum number of placements (as set in pre-defined targets), whilst retaining professionalism and quality, for experienced as well as first mission candidates.

• Ensure the update of the availability of the candidates in his/her pool in the relevant IT systems in order to give candidates all possible chances to be traced by pool managers.

• Facilitate, throughout the employee’s career, the process of finding a new mission or job in line with his/her development plan and the organizational needs in the short and long run. Jobs or missions can be in the field or in HQ.

• Check if a candidate may match job/mission requirements before discussing potential matches with a candidate or a pool manager. The DA proposes a candidate to the relevant pool manager in the OC.

• CHeck of the pre-matching is relevant in order to avoid unnecessary inefficiencies for all stakeholders. DA defends the candidatures with the support of the Recruitment Report/Profile Sheet/Individual Development Plan while ensuring the availability of the people presented.

• Establish the primary contact for the candidate during the matching process:

- Discuss a potential mission/job with the candidate and makes sure the candidate has all available information on the mission/job in order to allow the candidate to decide whether or not to apply for/accept the mission.

- In case of emergency or absence of the DA the pool manager can contact the candidate directly to propose a new mission.

- Makes sure that the candidate gets proper feedback in case the candidate is refused.

FACILITATING MISSIONS

Once the pool manager has made a proposal of a mission to the candidate and the candidate has accepted the mission/job, the DA makes sure the employee starts the mission/job in an efficient way, compliant to legal and MSF’s regulations and procedures. The DA is also accountable for MSF’s duty of care at departure, during and after the mission/job.

• AT DEPARTURE

- Share all possible information on the mission/job that the employee needs to start with the right expectations.

- Make sure that the employee departs in full compliance with the MSF’s policies (e.g. health, duty of care, to check) and legal requi-rements (e.g. linked to the country of origin and/or the destination country)

- Prepare briefings (and de-briefings) in liaison with HR Administration Officer.

- Briefing notes are made available to the organization (e.g. pool managers) through the relevant HR IT systems

- Prepare the concrete actions to undertake during the mission, fitting with the longer-term personal/professional development plan

• DURING MISSION

- At least once during the mission the DA has a personal contact (mail, skype, phone, etc) to follow-up evolution.

• AT RETURN

- Debrief expatriates returning from a mission, highlighting the skills acquired and those needing improvement, offering advice for fu-ture progress.

- Receive and processes end-of-mission evaluations

- Ensure the Pool Manager is informed of the main points and debriefing notes are registered in the appropriate database.