Experienced agency with very strong internal systems for program organization
Pros
1. Possess an extensive number of tools for designing and implementing quality programs, which are evidence-based. 2. Well structured internal processes, which contribute to more efficient management of both human and physical assets. 3. IRC invests heavily in the capacity-building of all staff - both national and international. The agency demonstrates a much more balanced approach to incorporating different voices and empowering staff of various skills and experience to succeed. 4. Strong emphasis on mental health and wellbeing with online resources; IRC promotes internal organizational culture to discuss MHPSS for all staff.
Cons
1. Although the agency possesses quality design tools and resources to measure marked impact of programming, insufficient time or no time is purposely dedicated to training new international staff on IRC's specific tools, which they expected to be used. Because of the exhaustive amount of tools for IRC's highly structured programming and organizational culture, the initial 3-4 weeks of employment should be dedicated to training international technical managers in order to ensure programs are more effectively designed and efficiently implemented. 2. The amount of organizational tools is overwhelming with an expectation that staff prioritize self-learning during non-official work hours. This approach wholly ignores modern pedagogical theory and techniques promoted in its own child and adolescent development and educational materials. Such an expectations are unfairly placed on technical managers, increasing stress levels in already challenging conditions. A conscious decision should be take to onboard new staff in a more structured way. By not training their own staff on internal minimal standards and procedures, IRC is setting its staff and in turn programs to fail or to be lower quality. 3. IRC's well established internal structures have inadvertently creatures silos for operations, limiting the agency's ability to be flexible and adaptive. This has also hindered creativity, weakened the motivation of independent thinkers and doers to adapt to local context, and generated 'only one way' approach. Taken together, these factors have fostered a very competitive environment between colleagues, among the various service delivery programs and support operations, and with government and other international partners. I also observed and experienced that competitive approach while working with other international agencies in joint forums with IRC. 4. This issues highlighted above contributed to toxic undercurrents within the agency on the ground. Additionally, I both witnessed other staff and personally experienced bullying from other departments leads and senior management. Although the agency has an anti-bullying policy, it is extremely difficult to prove through IRC's complaints mechanism. IRC generates a lot of awareness on what is bullying but lacks training on how to identify and document such incidents without fear of retribution. Investigations of bullying among staff within my own department were weak at best. Happily, IRC does place a strong emphasis on staff wellbeing and MHPSS. However, managers and senior staff receive no considerable training on how to identify, copy with, and support staff who are experiencing toxic stress or even the impact of traumatic events. Throughout the pandemic, senior managers did not adequately check-in or monitor staff, who were now working remotely and experiencing new forms of toxic stress. Recognition came only in half-hearted word but not in any genuine action. The messaging from HQ did not translate into action through country management. 5. IRC's lack of genuine recognition of the impact of remote and physically insecure settings is exemplified by unreasonably long R&R cycles (9+ weeks). R&R costs are born by donors, who even publish their own standards for their foreign service staff, setting a bar/standard. In my experience and from what I observed, international staff worked on average 70+ per week, especially with national staff who lacked capacity due to the lack of civil society organizations prior to the protracted conflict as well as very low educational standards. Such prolonged work hours in highly a stressful context with little to no freedom of movement even before the pandemic was a recipe for staff burnout. Premature or preventative staff burnout contributes to significant gaps in technical support and leadership to provide quality life-saving services. 5. IRC may taught itself as a protection agency and may even be recognized by other agencies first and foremost as a protection agency, however, I faced internal resistance and lack of prioritization of protection services. I frequently found myself having to justify spending on staffing to provide life-saving MHPSS services for conflict-affected children and families. For example, in a multi-sectoral grant proposal, I was instructed to expand programming to additional priority sites with only have the current budget for the upcoming two year proposals. The lack of understanding IRC's core mission priorities by other sector leads and senior operational managers diverted significant amounts in order to justify core programming and internal and sector-specific quality standards.