Be creative about retaining critical skills in non-profit organisations
Non-profit organisations and companies play a crucial role in the advancement of economic, educational, regulatory and societal measures, amongst others. Critical skills are key to making these organisations a success and to ensuring they achieve their goals.
The organisations I am referring to include universities, NGOs / non-profit companies / charities, public sector departments or municipalities, regulatory bodies, and other institutions whose mandate does not include profit.
Non-profit organisations pay significantly lower salaries, compared to large profit-making entities, making the attraction of critical skills to these organisations extremely challenging. In addition, COVID-19 has advanced the global competition for critical skills, as people can work from anywhere for any company. This leaves the question: what should non-profit organisations do to attract and retain critical skills? I have some thoughts and suggestions.
Partnerships: cross-sharing skills
My experience working with non-profit organisations is that there is a massive opportunity for partnerships. These partnerships can be designed in many mutually beneficial arrangements. One effective approach to incorporate is the mutual exchange of skills among organisations. The primary advantage of this practice lies in offering employees exposure to diverse skills and creating avenues for personal and professional development. This can mitigate the risk of not having well exposed and experienced employees.
Allocated time to work on innovative projects
Allowing employees to take time out to focus on innovative projects that are aligned with the organisation can improve employee engagement and benefit the organisation. Each employee can select any project they want to initiate and be allocated time in their schedule to accommodate the fulfilment of this project. This initiative can ensure employees immense themselves in the mission of the entity. This will only work if organisations focus on outcomes more than output.
Better leave
I think the current leave structures that we have in South Africa were designed to sweat the assets. With the increase in mental wellness focus, there is an opportunity to restructure the way organisations provide leave. The method of simply allocating about 20 days a year is too simplistic. Some of the great initiatives I have experienced in my career include:
- Allocating mental wellness leave days in which employees can book time off if they are not in the right head space
- Menstrual leave, which enables women to take time out of work for illnesses and symptoms associated with their periods, either paid or unpaid
- Paid sabbatical awarded to employees who have been with the organisation for some time
Development support
The growth of the organisation is directly linked with the growth of its people. Organisations should ensure that an adequate investment is made in providing support on any initiative that can contribute to the development of its employees. These can take multiple forms, including coaching, mentorship, training programs, bursaries, skills assessments and conferences.
Four-day work week
Multiple pilots of testing the viability of the Four-day work week have been done across the world, including in South Africa. I attended a presentation discussing how the pilot works, and the key question for me was the potential inequality that may be caused by this innovative solution to employee productivity. I must admit that I was impressed by the innovative solutions around ensuring that this mechanism of working can cater for many roles and departments in any organisation.
