Oxfam
JOB DETAILS
LOCATION: HSPs are globally roving and work away from their home base continuously to a particular location, from a few weeks up to six months’ duration per assignment. HSPs are typically deployed to country programmes up to nine months a year (pro rata for part-time posts). When not deployed (or on annual leave) HSPs may be assigned project / proactive work, the location in which the HSP undertakes this work will be determined by legal and cost implications.
CONTRACT TYPE: Open ended
JOB FAMILY: Programme
ONE OXFAM GRADE: C ZONE: 1
DEPARTMENT:
GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN TEAM
TEAM: PROGRAMME SUPPORT
SALARY: £35,521 net
HOURS: (FTE) 36 hours per week
FLEXIBLE WORKING
‘We believe flexible working is key to building the Oxfam of the future, so we’re open to talking through the type of flexible arrangements which might work for you.
COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
We are committed to ensuring diversity and gender equality within our organization.
GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN TEAM PURPOSE: The Global Humanitarian Team (GHT) has designated responsibilities to support, coordinate and lead humanitarian response and policies to reduce the impact of, prepare for and respond to crises, harnessing the resources of the whole Oxfam confederation to deliver support for Oxfam’s strategic plan.
The GHT works across Oxfam countries and regions and in close coordination with others working GHT will work with others to maximize the quality and impact of Oxfam’s humanitarian program by:
- Delivering rapid, safe and high-quality emergency surge capacity.
- Supporting program strategy, operational design, humanitarian preparedness and response.
- Promote greater local humanitarian leadership and collaborate on our approach to fragility and across the nexus.
- Facilitate the development of humanitarian capacity across Oxfam and partner organizations through building and brokering a cross confederation network and community.
- Supporting the gathering of evidence to enable learning, innovation and advocating for change across the sector.
- Working with Campaigns and Policy to influence for greater respect of the basic rights of crisis affected men and women.
- Working closely with affiliates in their roles as EAs and PAs for the best interests of the humanitarian program.
- Ensure connection with global and technical humanitarian system and coordination.
Humanitarian Support Personnel (HSP)
The Humanitarian Support Personnel (HSP) Team comprises of technical humanitarian experts from various fields across the globe who bring their skills and experience to Oxfam’s country teams to help them respond to conflicts and natural disasters.
JOB PURPOSE: To lead medium-scale emergency responses or manage (normally as an Area Manager) parts of large-scale emergency response programmes. Typically, at field office level, to scale up and manage emergency programmes and also to support both Oxfam’s programmes and local communities in preparing for future shocks and stresses. Post holder will also be expected to cover key vacant posts at humanitarian programme coordinator/manager level.
Be accountable for ensuring that community participation shapes programme decisions, promotes safe programming, actively seeks a partnership approach and follows feminist principles including strong awareness of power dynamics.
JOB REPORTS TO:
Humanitarian Coordinator of GHT and whilst on deployment, this position will report to Country Director or designated Manager.
JOBS REPORTING TO THIS JOB
No permanent line management, but during deployments will manage staff, in a particular area
BUDGET RESPONSIBILITY
None, but when deployed will have budget management responsibility for all humanitarian programme activities in a particular area. Exact size will depend on the specific deployment but likely to be up to €5m.
GEOGRAPHICAL SCOPE
The post is roving and could be deployed to any country in the world. During deployment the scope of the role will vary.
IMPACT
The impact of this role is mostly to be seen at a country level. Guiding and managing a team to who are implementing a humanitarian programme. The external impact of the role can be representation or maintaining positive relationships with our stakeholders, communities and government authorities.
KEY STAKEHOLDERS
Internal: the programme team and other Oxfam staff.
External: people supported by the programme, the donor, local partners, local authorities.
DIMENSIONS of the Role
- Coordinates and delivers agreed plans or strategies over which the job holder has some strategic input.
- Represents the affiliate in coordination meetings and some external relationships.
- Helps shape local level objectives within in a specific team. In larger programmes these jobs are often part of a management team.
- Their plans and objectives are developed to contribute to country, region and broader programme strategy and can involve collaboration with other programme units (e.g. other affiliates in-country or colleagues in different country programmes) or departments (e.g. head office).
- Requires the ability to analyse and communicate complex information to a wide audience.
- Decision-making requires significant levels of judgement based on technical and management experience, generally actively supported by line management or the programme team.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES (Technical, Leadership, People and Resource management)
This position will be responsible for managing medium-scale Oxfam emergency responses, or discrete programmes (such as a field office) within larger-scale responses. The post holder will undertake a series of deployments between a few weeks and six months duration for which specific Terms of Reference will be agreed with relevant parties, prior to, and/or revised in the early stages of the deployment.
Typically, the post holder will be responsible for a budget of up to five million Euros, a programme that assists up to 200,000 people and manage team of up to 50 staff. Programmes could be in response to sudden onset emergencies or conflict crises, delivering assistance in the core areas of expertise of WASH, Food and Economic Security, Protection and Gender.
Programme Management:
- Set up a new response in the first phase of an emergency, or scale up / manage an on-going humanitarian programme, typically at field office or country level.
- Lead or participate in assessments of emergency situations with an analysis of needs and gaps and proposals for Oxfam’s response.
- Develop or contribute to a clear response strategy, budget and action plan.
- Ensure that the programme is relevant and meets the populations’ needs, that communities participate in all stages of programme design and implementation and that a feedback and accountability mechanism is in place for beneficiaries. Adjust the programme design accordingly if needed.
- Develop programme objectives, proposal writing, budgets. Ensure quality and timely narrative and financial reporting to Oxfam and donors.
- Ensure sound budget management and monitoring of expenditure and field office / grant level
- Develop or ensure implementation of MEAL systems
- Support the use of key analytical tools and frameworks related to safe programming.
- External representation and effective coordination with government officials, the UN, donors & NGOs.
- Feed into Oxfam’s advocacy initiatives in-country and externally through coordination mechanisms
- Keep informed of relevant programme issues and contribute to wider programme learning – for example by initiating programme learning events and evaluations.
Team leadership and staff management
- Establish programmatic teams and logistics, HR, admin, finances and other business support services to enable rapid, large-scale delivery.
- Manage staff according to Oxfam procedures and policies, including performance management, ensuring that staff are supported and given opportunities and training for development.
- Ensure staff safety and security procedures are drawn up, implemented, revised and updated. Act as security focal point where required
- Foster an appropriate working culture in response teams built on Oxfam’s values.
- Support, coach and train Oxfam teams and partner organisations, with the aim of handing the programme over either to national staff or partners.
Partnerships
- Where appropriate work with local partners to design and implement programmes. Design partner-level agreements to enable responses in collaboration with local or national NGOs.
- Engage in a constructive dialogue with partners and assess capacities (local NGO, Civil Society or governmental). Design relevant and realistic partnership capacity development plans, with the objective of strengthening the partner’s humanitarian response capacity
- Promote local leadership, also including with non-traditional partners and CSO alliances.
General
- Promote collaborative working relationships with key stakeholders in regions (Regional Humanitarian Coordinators, Country Directors, country programme staff and partners) and Global Humanitarian Team colleagues in the Delivery, Strategic Focus Areas, and Quality and Capacity teams to support the delivery of effective, high quality humanitarian programmes in line with Oxfam’s vision for humanitarian preparedness and response
- Promote integrated, gender aware humanitarian responses which demonstrate accountability to beneficiaries and are consistent with Oxfam policies and international quality standards
- Ensure that programme design and implementation is consistent with Oxfam’s quality and accountability standards, emergency guidelines and protocols, the Core Humanitarian Standard and that work meets Sphere Standards and other external quality commitments.
Other
- Support field and country level contingency and preparedness planning for future emergencies
- During quiet periods duties may include research work, participation in audits, evaluations and staff trainings, or other suitable tasks as assigned either in a GHT hub or from the post holders’ home base.
PERSON SPECIFICATION
Most importantly, every individual in Oxfam needs to be able to:
- Live our values of INCLUSION, ACCOUNTABILITY, EMPOWERMENT, COURAGE, SOLIDARITY and EQUALITY (read more about these here)
- Ensure you commit to our ORGANIZATIONAL ATTRIBUTES (including adhering to the Code of Conduct):
1. Be committed to our feminist principles, and to applying them in your day-to-day behaviour and your work. Be ready to keep learning, with accountability to those who experience oppression as a result of their identities, such as their gender, race/ethnicity, disability, class, or LGBTQIA identity.”
2. Be committed to undertaking Oxfam’s safeguarding training and adhering to relevant policies, to ensure all people who come into Oxfam are as safe as possible.
EXPERIENCE, KNOWLEDGE & COMPETENCIES
Minimum requirements all HSPs are expected to fulfil:
- Ability to deploy at short notice to areas affected by crisis and support the rapid scale up of humanitarian programmes to meet lifesaving needs of affected people.
- Management skills: HSP deployments usually involve managing a team to deliver the work, HSPs will need to demonstrate management competencies, of international and multi-cultural teams, in difficult and stressful environments.
- Behavioural skills; all HSP deployments require the individual to successfully work with and mentor others often under challenging circumstances. HSPs should demonstrate competencies around “listening and creating dialogue” and “working with others” as well as networking skills.
For this role, you will be expected to role model Oxfam’s feminist leadership approach and we have selected the most relevant feminist leadership practices which we will use for assessment purposes (which you can read more about here):
- Self-Awareness
- Agility, Complexity and Ambiguity
- Relationship building
Mutual Accountability
ESSENTIAL
- Significant experience of managing emergency programmes in complex environments, in particular as field Area Manager or response lead
- In-depth understanding of relevant humanitarian principles and policies
- Proven financial management skill and experienced in managing budgets in humanitarian programmes.
- Experience of leadership and people management of multi-cultural teams
- Confident representation and coordination skills.
- Excellent team work skills, and a track record of building trust within and empowering large teams, also over distance
- Proven influencing, negotiating and networking skills with internal and external audiences.
- High level of self-awareness, and good stress and self-management.
- Ability to take initiative and make decisions in fast moving environments.
- Sensitivity to cultural differences, and the ability to work in a wide variety of cultural contexts.
- Ability and willingness to work calmly under pressure and in challenging and insecure environments.
- Can be deployed at short notice to areas affected by humanitarian crises
- Excellent communication skills
Good written and spoken English
Desirable
- Knowledge and experience of working in resilience, disaster risk reduction and disaster preparedness programmes.
- Experience working with partnerships and community-based groups.
- Working knowledge of one or more additional languages (especially French, Spanish, Arabic).
SAFER RECRUITMENT
Oxfam is committed to preventing any type of unwanted behaviour at work including sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, lack of integrity and financial misconduct; and promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults. Oxfam expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment through our code of conduct. We place a high priority on ensuring that only those who share and demonstrate our values are recruited to work for us. Offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and appropriate screening checks, which can include criminal records and terrorism finance checks.
How to apply
Please Click on the Link Below:
https://jobs.oxfam.org.uk/vacancy/18380/description
As part of your online application, please upload your up-to-date CV and a covering letter explaining your suitability against the essential criteria in the job profile.