Management to Nonprofit Organizations

“In Save the Children China, we have many employees who have been working for a long time.” Kate Wedgwood said, “Our corporate development director has worked for 10 years, and the Tibet project manager has worked for 10 years. I have been here for 8 years, and I myself have worked here for 12 years."

Wei Jie is the president of Save the Children China. Save the Children is an international charity with a history of more than 80 years that aims to provide lasting solutions for children threatened by poverty, disease, injustice and violence. Save the Children China, a branch of Save the Children, currently has more than 150 employees working in more than 20 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in China.

Wei Jie said frankly, because Save the Children China project is currently an international organization registered with the Chinese industry and commerce department, not a local charity organization in China, and cannot raise funds in mainland China. Donations for talent management and development are also limited, so Chinese organizations are not very well-funded. So why is employee loyalty still high here?

Management guru Dulac once wrote an article on the non-profit organization to stimulate the initiative of knowledge workers and improve the work efficiency of knowledge workers. In terms of setting an example for the enterprise, it can be called a "management pioneer".

Zhang Hong is Director of Support Services for Save the Children China. According to her, the organization has grown so far that commercial enterprises and non-profit organizations are absorbing nutrients from each other, and the connection will be even closer.

Participate in the plan to inspire employee loyalty

Wei Jie said that it is important to retain existing employees. What methods do you use to retain employees?

Hong Zhang: There are two steps to retaining employees, one is to clearly tell employees our vision, and the other is to make employees feel that they are part of the vision. Save the Children has a participatory decision-making system that engages every employee in the development of the organization's mission and plans. Every employee will have a clear understanding of the organization's mission and job responsibilities. I think this is the most important way to make employees feel respected.

Not long ago, Save the Children UK headquarters finalized the 10-year and 3-year plans. This decision is first drafted by the CEO of Save the Children, and communicated to all staff, through the regional heads or the heads of individual national programmes, for their input. For example, it is planned to propose how many pounds to raise in 10 years. The relevant fundraising leaders of each country will give their own views on this figure, and then submit the summary to the CEO of Save the Children. Some countries may not be able to implement the headquarters' plan. For example, the headquarters plan hopes that children in the poorest places will have health protection in 10 years. Some countries may only be able to do health knowledge training. feedback. After headquarters learns the situation in each country, it will refine the plan.

The plan with reference to the feedback will be submitted to the board of directors. After the board of directors approves it, it will be officially finalized and the plan will be promoted to various national projects. As you can see, this process is a participatory decision-making process.

It is not only a big plan at the global level, but also the work plans of employees in various countries and levels are jointly formulated by everyone. For example, after a large organizational plan is formulated, the relevant responsible persons of each country should formulate specific plans according to the different conditions of each country. We must first evaluate our own situation according to the big plan, see what can be done, what cannot be done, what can be done better, etc., and make arrangements for various aspects according to the funds.

Specifically in China, our fiscal year is from April to March. At the beginning of April, Wei Jie will start to formulate the project development strategy for the current year after receiving her boss's plan. Each part of the draft plan will be passed to the relevant department leaders There, departmental leaders pass down to managers at the manager level for feedback to make plans complete and actionable. After the feedback was collected, Wei Jie made her plan. In the process of planning by the superior, the employees below have already understood her plan and have a concept of their own work, which is also conducive to formulating their own work plans.

Such a participatory approach to work development ensures that employees at all levels have a clear understanding of the work tasks of all aspects of the organization. He himself was involved in the formulation of tasks at all levels. This sense of participation and transparency of the organization has a strong role in stimulating the subjective initiative of employees, giving them a sense of ownership, responsibility and pride in the organization.

In addition to your particular approach to work planning, do you think the non-profit nature of Save the Children's work is an important factor in stimulating employee engagement and mission?

Zhang Hong: Helping the weak is the motivation for many employees to come to work here. Our employees are inspired by our mission and vision every day and feel that they are doing great things. It is easier for us to work with disadvantaged children to develop employee loyalty and responsibility than for a commercial organization.

In addition, our organization also has some methods for motivation, such as regularly organizing staff outings, inviting some volunteers to help us organize activities, etc., to strengthen everyone's integration and communication. In the event we will encourage an atmosphere of equality and call on every employee to participate.

Wei Jie: In fact, we have also participated in various forms of employee surveys and found that our salary level ranks among the top of all non-profit organizations participating in the survey. If registered as a local non-profit organization, our salary may be higher than other local organizations. The government may think that we pay our employees too much, but I personally don't think so. Because our employees are professional talents, they need corresponding salaries to ensure their enthusiasm for work. In terms of employee protection, we help employees solve problems such as files and insurance.

Multiple assessments ensure that goals are achieved

You place great emphasis on the sense of purpose of your employees. The sense of purpose is actually a temptation, and employees may indulge in the philanthropy of their own business without effectively implementing the plans they make. How do you solve this problem?

Zhang Hong: We have a senior management meeting every quarter. Provincial project managers and provincial HR, finance, communication, and project leaders will participate. At present, there are six provincial-level offices in Anhui, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Beijing, Tibet, etc. in China, which are responsible for the operation of projects in the province, city and surrounding areas.

Evaluating the work assigned in the previous quarter is an important part of the executive meeting. For example, the next quarterly meeting will be held in Tibet in July this year. At that time, we will evaluate the arrangement of the meeting in April, such as how far the plan has been implemented and what support is needed. At the same time, we will continue to evaluate the plans organized by Save the Children UK, highlighting our 3-year and 10-year goals, as well as our mission and vision to all employees.

For a lower level employee, what are your methods for clearing the plan and ensuring results?

Zhang Hong: During the planning process, the senior management will pass his plan down to the next level, and each grass-roots employee will also have an understanding of the organizational plan and the plans of other levels of employees, and formulate personal plans according to the plans of the superiors.

In March and September every year, we have two performance appraisals to evaluate the work of each employee. For example, if the fundraising target is 1 million, how far has it been achieved in the past 6 months? What support is needed? Is the employee unsuitable for the job in the current position? These related issues should be considered.

In addition, we will continue to repeat the evaluation and planning process during the quarterly meetings between March and September. After the quarterly meeting, managers at all levels will communicate the summary of the meeting to the following. Each of our provincial offices has a monthly meeting and a weekly meeting every week. At that time, all employees will be in the office to share their work situation last week and this week's work plan with you. The local supervisor will also introduce the new situation of the office. , such as who has joined, who has left, what visitors have recently, and what activities are there. Every week, each province has a senior management meeting, and employees above the manager level will make some plans or arrangements together.

Volunteer work is unpaid, how to ensure the quality of volunteer work?

Zhang Hong: After each volunteer project ends, we will have an evaluation. The evaluation results will be fed back to the volunteer recruitment team, who will analyze the volunteers who participated in the work and strengthen future volunteer work. The evaluation results will affect the quality of our future work.

Strict recruitment with complete training

What are your recruitment standards and procedures?

Wei Jie: Recruitment is important in identifying candidates for Save the Children. When I initially hired a program director, candidates were amazed at how complex our recruiting process was. In addition to interviews with senior management in both Chinese and English, we also have candidates do group interviews, asking them to discuss an issue, and we observe their behavior and attitude from the sidelines. For senior positions, there are sometimes more than 20 evaluation members.

Attitude towards people is what we value in the recruitment process, because our work is dealing with children, and our employees must fully respect children and be willing to listen to their voices. In team interviews, we will also focus on whether candidates have affinity, team awareness, and good at adopting other people's opinions. After the interview, I would ask the staff who served the candidate's tea and water to know from their perspective whether the candidate was polite and respectful of others. Feedback from our staff will also be a valuable reference for candidates to be hired.

Save the Children's programs around the world often reach the poorest 10 percent of the poorest people in their countries. Our employees are generally from the middle class of the country where they are located and want to do something good to give back to the society. We look for employees with professional skills and a strong sense of responsibility at heart.

Zhang Hong: In addition, we will ask the applicant's former boss or company HR to write a recommendation letter for him. The recommendation letter should preferably introduce his previous work style and his working image in the company.

China's non-profit organizations are in a stage of development, and many people are not very clear about the work of non-profit organizations. After new employees come in, do you have a relatively complete training mechanism?

Zhang Hong: We recruit a lot of young people in China. They are more open to non-profit organizations. They are often just starting their careers at Save the Children. Of course, this also means that they can become professionals in the future. talent. So for us, the on-the-job training of our employees is very important, we have a comprehensive on-the-job training toolkit, including child protection policy, Chinese project headquarters and provincial project staff management structure, three-year and ten-year plans, provincial projects Introduction and other content, new employees will have such a toolkit when they take up their jobs.

Many people don't know anything about child rights, child protection, child participation, etc. before they join Save the Children, and we spend a lot of time and money training them on the Save the Children philosophy. For Save the Children, anti-discrimination and respect for diversity are critical, and discrimination and unification are barriers to development work. We want to bring change to children on the premise that our employees identify and understand the philosophy of Save the Children.

Because the training work requires a lot of funds, we often rely on the help of some other business partners to complete the training work, especially the training of executives. For example, we asked consultants from Boston Consulting Group to help us do employee training on strategic management. These companies hope to contribute to their corporate social responsibility by helping us.

We have a "shadow manager" training system where managers in the corporate world and our managers share experiences with each other over a period of time. In this regard, an organization called NPP can find partners and provide related services for us.

As a global organization, Save the Children China also provides many opportunities for employees to be sent to other branches for training.

In fact, our management approach is similar to that of many for-profit companies. But we are more focused on long-term investment, giving employees hope to grow within the organization, which helps us retain employees who have spent a lot of time and energy developing.