Human Resources Department In Non-Governmental Organisations

Hi all,

I would like you to share your ideas with me on the picture I'm going to relate to you.

In this NGO the HR Dept. has been established in a way that it is being handled by the members of the board of directors of this NGO. It is not within the office, and there are no employees involved. Whenever there is a need of sorting policy issues or complaints from the employees, or whatever relates to labour practices, it is the director who handles those matters in his own way, not basing anything on any policy, and whenever it is beyond his control he calls the HR board of directors. He is the only person who meets with the board, some of the employees did not even know the members of the board.

Whenever the employees have matters to be addressed by HR dept. they have to go to the director in order for him to meet with the board and come back with the report of their decision.
So, my question is that, "Is it proper for an NGO to operate like that? Is there anything these employees must do to change the situation?
Please, help.

Hello,
This is not the right way or rather systematic way to handle employee issues. Be it NGO or a IT company, it can have an exclusive HR Specialist for resolving issues...
Everytime ppl cannot wait or depend on only 1 person for that. If the NGO is big enough to have a seperate HR, they can hire 1 person with 3 - 4 yrs experience.
Else, they can nominate 2 or 3 ppl within the NGO to take up the additional responsibility. Or there can be system level interaction where ppl can send their queries/issues through mail, and one person resolves it. If the issue is not cleared in 5 days time, it automatically directs to the director or Board of Directors...

Hi,
In small NGOs normally there is no HR dept. but if it is large enough then it must have and HR person to handel the employees issues. I also worked with an NGO it had its HR dept. totally separate.

Hi All,

No organizations should have the operations like that. If an NGO is too small to hire a separate HR person or having a separate HR dept., the NGO can combine the work of Admin and HR under the supervision of any senior manager. The Board should be involved only once there is a policy change on any strategic areas.

I am also working in an NGO having 16 employees only. we don't have any specific HR position but yes the admin officer takes care of small daily issues like attendance, leave, personnel files etc. The suggestions to policy changes are being made by another person who is an MBA in HR but working on differnet position in consultation with the whole team and CE. CE then place it before the Board for approval. Even if the NGOs doesn't have any policy or department to look after HR Issues any senior manager can supervise it. BIS have recently issued the guideilines to improve organizational accountability at workplace, they can refer to it. In fact it is a certifiable standard also (IS16001). Pretty soon a policy guiding the good governance practices will be launched.

Infact small NGOs have more complicated issues in HR, as there is no dedicated person to look at those issues and these are sometimes jsut ignored. But there are various NGOs which have good HR practices.

Hi to all who responded,
Guys thank you so much. As I was reading your responses I gathered some facts that will help in an attempt towards resolving the matter, as I feel that the situation is not healthy at all to the employees. I'm yet to collect more from others who might respond.