It started out like any other retrenchment story. A consultant was flown in to lead a process of change, sold to us staff as necessary and inevitable in light of the changing context of international development and the need to keep up with the times.
Fair enough. This is not the first NGO to use this spin when it no longer has enough money to sustain itself – and it won’t be the last.
The consultant presented the new business model, complete with fancy charts, colourful graphics and well-placed pop culture references.
Some of my colleagues and I were surprised; mainly because we had been recently hired for open-ended positions. Being offered such a position was a huge factor in our decisions to join the organisation. After all, for an industry that runs on unpaid internships and fixed-term contracts, an open-ended contract is equivalent to Willy Wonka’s golden ticket.
For many of my senior colleagues, some who had been working for the organisation for longer, the news was more damaging. They had children in school and mortgages to pay. Many were the sole breadwinners of their immediate and extended families. Like any other employee, they had managed their lives differently after securing open-ended contracts.
Despite that, we took it all in our stride. We expected the entire process to take its time to go through the required stakeholder consultations, on account of the organisation’s emphasis on collaboration, transparency and inclusiveness.
But from then on, everything went full speed. A tight timeline was adhered to and it became clear that the organisation’s new direction saw no value in keeping or developing the talents it had previously hired. But worse was that it allowed staff to doubt their own abilities to perform in an agile and flexible environment. We were made to feel like outdated fossils, totally disposable, regardless of outstanding performance records.
The entire process took a few months. This impressive accomplishment should be taken as proof that any large NGO can be as efficient as it wants to be, particularly if it involves letting go its staff to save its bottom line.
Was it legal? Yes. Was it ethical and in accordance with its own professed values? Arguably not.
The management failed to see that the distressing situation was, ultimately, a result of its own incompetence. When aid organisations lack the ability to forecast their own operating budget and staff needs over a period of five years – heck, even two years – people will suffer; whether it’s the communities they claim to help, or their employees who believe (or believed) in the work they do. That’s the bottom line.
I guess that open-ended contract really was Willy Wonka’s golden ticket; rare and, in the end, too good to be true.
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