Staff turnover
| Key questions | Aim | Risks in getting it wrong |
| How will you manage potentially high staff turnover especially among international staff? | Posts are always filled, team members have proper handovers, teams are rebuilt | Productivity suffers, teams are disrupted, incoming staff take a long time to become fully effective, past decisions are constantly reviewed and changed with little or no benefit to programme, loss of institutional memory |
Typically there is high staff turnover especially among international staff and requires planning.
- Contract length – try to have as long as possible especially for key programme and support posts, humanitarian programmes generally last longer than anyone imagines.
- Lead time – good recruitment takes time, check the organisational chart, and start recruiting replacements months rather than weeks in advance.
- Consider the benefits of national rather than international recruitment in reducing turnover and increasing future surge capacity
- Handover – they are essential – even an hour together will save a lot of time
- Team building – team dynamics will change each time a new member joins – so think about team re-building
Further reading: Humanitarian Network Paper No. 55 – Understanding and Addressing Staff Turnover in Humanitarian Agencies
If staff are on short contracts, you may have to start recruiting replacements even before the team members who will be replaced have taken up their posts.