By Archana Mehta
Fighting a deadly disease affecting millions of people — including far too many children — is inherently challenging. Adding political and cultural turmoil complicates the mission. Fortunately for millions of people in Africa, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation has a remarkable team of HR professionals committed to overcoming those challenges — and any others that should arise.
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Over the past decade, the Ivory Coast has experienced a bloody civil war. After the country split into two factions – the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south – French and United Nations peacekeepers tried to bring stability to the region, even helping the country hold national elections to defuse a growing political crisis.
But in 2010, the country plunged back into civil war when the presidential incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to concede to the recognized winner, Alassane Ouattara. This political situation presented enormous challenges for the international HR team at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF).
Tami Ward-Dahl, vice president of Administration and Human Resources for EGPAF holds both the Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR®) and the Global Professional in Human Resources (GPHR®) and discusses how crucial the HR team was to staff during this period of instability and fear: “HR played a critical role in providing flexibility and creativity to our staff so that they could deal with the reality of trying to stay safe and care for their families during this challenging time.
“Working closely with our country HR partner, we continued to reassure our staff that we were looking out for them, that we would not abandon them and that we would keep our team together.”
It’s not a situation the HR team could afford to take lightly. The AIDS epidemic is rampant in Africa, and according to the foundation’s website, approximately 450,000 people are living with the deadly disease in the Ivory Coast alone — including 63,000 children under the age of 15 — with millions more throughout the subcontinent.
The foundation’s work, along with its partners’, is making a substantial impact. The foundation states that in the Ivory Coast, the organization has enrolled more than 182,000 patients into HIV care and has started more than 89,000 people on antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV/AIDS, including more than 15,000 children under the age of 15. And the foundation has another ambitious goal: to prevent new HIV infections among children and to be a driving force in the elimination of pediatric AIDS by 2015.
Founded in 1988, the foundation works in 15 countries around the world and has its largest presence in Africa. More than 90 percent of the global staff of 900 are in the field, furthering the foundation’s life-saving mission to work with governments and businesses to eliminate the spread of the deadly disease through a variety of advocacy, education and prevention and treatment programs. While awareness of the disease is growing, the challenges to stopping its spread continue, especially over maintaining a steady stream of resources to target the epidemic.
“The technology, drugs, knowledge and know-how are available to solve the problem,” says Andrew Moir, international HR director for the foundation and a Human Resources Management Professional (HRMPSM) certificant. “But the lack of money, resources and the infrastructure to roll out programs on a large enough scale limit our capabilities. It’s a question of creating the capacity to provide everyone with the drugs they need and to get people to bring their children to the clinics.”
Whenever there’s serious instability in the region, the foundation’s already challenging mission becomes that much harder. So in 2010 when the Ivory Coast descended into a full-blown crisis, the leadership team had to make some swift decisions to protect the staff’s safety and security, all the while encouraging them to keep up the organization’s crucial mission.
After the country’s infrastructure began to shut down — including all banks and airports — the HR team sought to stay in constant communication with the staff. Even though many in the country could not access cash, the team ensured that staff continued to get paid and helped them to avoid dangerous commutes to work by instead allowing them and encouraging them to work from home, where feasible.
“We are constantly keeping an eye on conflict,” says Moir, who is based in Kenya. “From an HR perspective, we are the organization’s direct point of contact for safety and security issues.”
As international human resources director, Moir is in the first cohort of the HRMP. He provides HR leadership, advice and support to country programs in Africa. In addition, he focuses on strengthening HR policies and practices, capacity building, audit and compliance and leadership development. Moir says that since Africa is the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic, most of the active programming work is done there.
But with a team spread out across different countries with their own languages and cultures, HR professionals in Africa and Washington play a paramount role in creating as smooth a working environment as possible. It is an especially crucial role as political upheaval and instability reigns in some of the areas where the virus is most prevalent.
The foundation has a country office in 12 countries within Africa, each with a management team and on-the-ground staff. Over 80 percent of the countries in Africa have a full-time HR manager who oversees the day-to-day issues of the country office like employee relations, recruiting and contracts. Each HR manager responds to a director of operations who in turn reports to a country director.
“Each human resources manager dotted line reports to me in a functional capacity,” says Moir. “We call them country HR partners, and we form a pretty tight network.”
Moir, 48, gravitated to the HR world after attending university and has never looked back. Having been with the foundation for close to four years, the work presents a welcome challenge, he says, and the extensive experience that he’s gathered over the years, working in both the corporate and nonprofit sectors, helps him effectively manage a diverse set of in-the-field HR managers spread across the African continent.
“In effect, human resources has an impact on every person in the company, and the work of the human resources team helps the foundation achieve its goals,” he says.
To keep up a continuous stream of communication and to ensure compliance, Moir and his HR colleagues in Washington, D.C., interact regularly with each country’s HR team through monthly calls, quarterly global calls and an annual conference, which allows the global HR team to work with one another in person. In addition, Moir visits each country twice a year to foster relationships and conduct HR compliance checks.
While most of the foundation’s staff is on the ground in Africa, the staff in Washington handles communications, advocacy and development for the foundation, as well as corporate services and medical and scientific affairs. Two additional offices operate in Los Angeles (where the foundation began nearly 25 years ago) and in Geneva. The organization also has U.S. staff who are fulltime telecommuters.
In addition to country HR managers and Moir’s role, the Washington office has a HR team that oversees both U.S. and Africa’s operations.
Ward-Dahl is responsible for creating and managing the overall strategy for all HR systems, practices and approaches to support the foundation’s organizational growth and development.
She also oversees a team of seven staff based in the United States who work on all domestic HR issues, support the HR team in Africa and address any additional issues belonging to international assignees around the world.
Ward-Dahl, who spent much of her career in the forprofit world before arriving at the foundation, agrees that communication is critical among her staff. She says that although communication can be an ongoing challenge, the teams are not limited to working within their respective groups and are encouraged to work cross-functionally.
Since most of the staff is on the ground in Africa, Ward-Dahl and her colleagues travel to the continent to attend an annual global HR strategy conference, allowing the teams across the world to meet in one setting, such as this past year’s conference in Swaziland, which brought together more than 25 HR colleagues.
“The conferences allow us to come together face-to-face, conduct trainings and bring in external speakers, providing us with an opportunity to strengthen our capacity as a team,” she says.
Ward-Dahl also says the foundation is very supportive of furthering the skills necessary to help each employee reach his or her personal goals. She says that the organization was especially supportive of the HR Certification Institute’s new Global Credential Program.
“There is an appreciation here for increasing the reputation of HR and for moving the profession forward through certification,” she says, adding that 10 international HR staff members sat for the exam this past summer.
Ward-Dahl believes it’s important for her to be supportive of the individual HR partners who are in the field. “We look for opportunities to bring colleagues together and then we maximize those opportunities. We also strongly believe in the value of working together. HR colleagues in one country are quick to provide support to one another; we are all part of the same team. For example, when our Rwanda program needed HR assistance with our performance management program, our HR partner in Côte d’Ivoire traveled there on fairly short notice to help out.“
For EGPAF, communication is critical, since staff members are working in a culturally diverse set of countries that also may be dealing with conflict or political crisis. On top of that, consistent access to the Internet can be a challenge in many of the foundation’s countries.
In an effort to keep up a constant stream of communication, the Washington HR team conducts bi-monthly meetings with its counterparts in Africa. The intent of these meetings is to connect with colleagues there and allow HR partners in Africa to touch base with one other.
Chrissie Shea is the director for human resources in the Washington office and holds the Professional in Human Resources (PHR®) certification. She runs these meetings, calls them crucial opportunities for “virtual networking.”
Shea, who is instrumental in facilitating each meeting from the United States, uses WebEx, web conferencing and online software that enables materials and presentations to be shared. In addition, the software encourages more interaction between participants than just a single phone call.
Each call focuses on a different theme, such as safety and security of employees on the ground and staff retention and motivation. In addition, staff is asked to provide their input during each call to share ideas and best practices within each country.
Moir says the leadership team wants to get away from a “topdown approach” and avoid employees’ feeing like the suggestions and advice given are “too U.S.-centric.” He argues that they are also trying to involve countries in more new initiatives, create multicultural teams and involve HR partners in the creation of new policies.
During meetings, Moir says, they try to leverage each other’s practices. “For example, I may need a job description, and so I may ask if anyone else has one already created one,” Moir says. “Or maybe we need a new policy, and someone may be able to share theirs.”
In addition to WebEx, Ward-Dahl says the team uses Skype every day as an instant communication or chat tool for calls and quick messages. She says, “We try to use technology to our advantage, and flexibility is key. If we need to be on a 5 a.m. phone call to provide support to an HR partner, we do it.”
The team is so flexible that they are not afraid to jump on a plane to Africa to assist with any number of situations on the ground.
“It is so important for us to build relationships and establish a level of trust with our colleagues on the ground,” Ward-Dahl said. “Our focus is providing support whenever our partners need it. As an example, we determined our partners in Mozambique needed help, and within two weeks, Chrissie [Shea] was on the ground there and will be there for a month to provide hands-on human resources support.”
Indeed, managing multiple cultures within 14 different countries is no easy feat. With more than 60 languages represented, including French, Portuguese, Swahili and local languages, there can be plenty of cultural challenges. Moir says that they try to create a “common language” with each other to facilitate a good working environment since English often is an employee’s second, third or even fourth language.
“We have to make sure that everyone is speaking and understanding one another in straightforward vocabulary terms,” says Moir. “We use global English and avoid using idioms and slang.”
Moir says that Americans are often more informal in their language and sometimes use expressions that not everyone understands. “For example, when Americans say, ‘Let’s hold the retreat in the fall,’ not everyone follows as the seasons aren’t the same in Africa; they are reversed, and in much of Africa fall is called autumn.”
In addition to language, different cultures may share different perspectives with respect to time and deadlines. According to Moir, there are certain stereotypes around Africans being more lax with respect to time, but in most cases this is an outdated view that is quickly changing.
As the AIDS epidemic continues in Africa, the foundation’s need for resources grows. Awareness of the epidemic also continues to grow globally, and the foundation relies heavily on private and institutional donations to supplement its U.S. government funding. Organizations like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) continue to provide the organization with crucial resources to work towards the elimination of pediatric AIDS.
“For several years, there was a huge sense of denial, and the world was ignoring the problem of AIDS,” Moir says. “Over the last eight to 10 years, there have been huge awareness campaigns, huge volumes of literature published, and the epidemic has been emphasized in school curriculums.”
Moir also credits the additional awareness and political support for bringing down the infection rates in Africa. Moir says the foundation is well known and well respected as a key player in the industry and among healthcare workers.
“The name is also a draw when we’re recruiting people like technicians and those with medical backgrounds to work in the public health sector,” Moir says, “and we’re seen as an industry leader.”
While Moir acknowledges that when recruiting for HR managers or financial managers, the group’s name alone may not amount to a major advantage, it’s clear that people resonate with the mission. “People want to be part of the solution,” Moir says, “and we have a huge retention factor.”
Providing HIV/AIDS support in conflict-torn countries is still a significant challenge, partly because donor funds are not always available for these countries. But the foundation is constantly exploring new opportunities to widen its impact, even in war-torn regions. In fact, the foundation just started a new project in late 2011 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The conflict there is mainly in the eastern part of the country, but the foundation’s work is primarily based in the capital, Kinshasa, near the country’s western border.
While Moir says that the conflict in DRC is not directly impacting their work yet, ensuring the safety and security of the staff in Kinshasa is something that falls to human resources, so the risk levels are constantly monitored.
The biggest challenges in the AIDS prevention battle in Africa lie in the lack of resources: funding, staff and the infrastructure necessary to roll out programs on a large scale.
Moir says that “motivating people to come to clinics and be tested, keeping them on the antiretroviral drugs and ensuring they have the discipline to come to follow up for check-ups” is one of the foundation’s key challenges.
“There used to be a stigma around being HIV-positive, but the cultural stigma has been greatly reduced, and people are much more open about HIV.” He says that people are starting to open up about their HIV status, and it’s a big change. “There is less stigma and discrimination in the workforce; however, it does still exist.”
To ensure they are constantly assessing the AIDS landscape and discussing issues that impact the group’s work, the foundation’s Global Leadership Team convenes twice a year. Every country director and the senior leadership team attend these meetings, which are held once per year in Washington and once per year in Africa, including this year’s session in Zambia.
Ward-Dahl says these meetings are an opportunity for the foundation’s leadership to ensure alignment with strategic priorities as well as an opportunity to discuss some of the critical challenges facing the foundation.
So what are the future HR priorities for the organization? Moir says that the international NGO community in general is driven by short-term projects, posing challenges for staff retention and succession planning. The HR team has been successful in finding talented employees to help the organization succeed and placing them in new positions within the organization after a project ends.
However, over the next two years, the HR team will be enhancing its efforts around succession planning, talent development and more proactive workforce planning, along with strategic leadership development to ensure the foundation is fit for its future challenges.