STATEMENT OF THE CEB HR NETWORK AT THE 62nd SESSION OF ICSC: RESULTS OF THE UNITED NATIONS/UNIED STATES GRADE EQUIVALENCY STUDIES (SES)

STATEMENT OF THE CEB HR NETWORK AT THE 62nd SESSION OF ICSC: RESULTS OF THE UNITED NATIONS/UNIED STATES
GRADE EQUIVALENCY STUDIES (SES)
(ICSC/62/R.10)


Mr. Chairman,

The HR Network thanks the Secretariat for its efforts to pursue the United States/United Nations Grade Equivalency studies. At the same time, the Network notes that document R.10 is again only a progress report. We fully appreciate, of course, the difficulties your Secretariat has had in obtaining the data required to undertake the necessary in-depth equivalency studies. The current comparator is restructuring, broadbanding, moving towards individualized pay. Therefore, it is becoming more and more difficult to undertake a proper comparison between the United States federal civil service and the United Nations international civil service. These difficulties demonstrate, once again, the vulnerability of our pay system, in that it relies on only one national civil service as a comparator - and a civil service which now is no longer easily comparable, for the reasons given.


Mr. Chairman,
Two weeks ago, when the HR Network discussed the three items under agenda item 9, there was a growing sense of frustration in the room. The ICSC Secretariat colleagues, who were in the room with us, could no doubt attest to that sense of frustration. It resulted from the fact that for some twenty years now, the organizations expressed serious concerns to the Commission on the non-application of the Noblemaire principle. Many Executive Heads of various UN organizations pointed out, time and time again, that the capacity of organizations to recruit and retain staff of the highest standards of competence has significantly been undermined.

However, frustration was not the only sentiment at the HR Network. There was also an increasingly strong spirit of determination. The organizations of the common system, Mr. Chairman, are and will remain determined in their efforts to convince the Commission that the non-application of Noblemaire over the past years is not acceptable and that we need an in-depth review of Noblemaire and its application.

At the HR Network meeting, we circulated to our members a document which goes back thirteen years. It is entitled “An annotated history of the compensation philosophy of the League of Nations and the United Nations”. This document, prepared by the CCAQ Secretariat was written in preparation for the 1993 summer session of ICSC (which also took place here in Vienna). We will be happy to make the document available to members of the Commission if desired.

This document provides very interesting insights into the thinking of the Noblemaire Committee when it laid the foundations for one of the world’s first international civil services in 1921. One can only admire the visionary qualities of these “founding fathers” more than eighty years ago.

But it might also be true to say that even the five visionary men who formed the Noblemaire Committee would have been hard pressed to imagine our world as it looks in the year 2006. The international civil service of 2006 is no longer comparable with that of the 1920s, or the 1950s, or the 1970s. Members of the Commission are well aware of the fundamental changes that have taken place in the employment market over the last two decades. Let me highlight some of the most salient changes as they relate to the junior, mid-level and senior levels in the UN system.

For entry staff, employability is more important than employment security: Young people, the people in their late 20s and early 30s, are no longer basing their career choices on the pursuit of lifelong employment contracts. The prospect of lifelong employment with one employer was a powerful incentive for past generations, one that would have outweighed the pursuit of income maximization. But that no longer holds true. The generation that is now entering the job market is more concerned with managing their future employability with different employers. The opportunity to learn and develop new skills and competencies is now a powerful incentive for choosing an employer, as are work life balance and working in a team rather than a hierarchical structure. The move away from long-term job security with one employer also requires this new generation to maximize their earnings in the short run and early on: Young people nowadays are well aware that jobs may be hard to come by once they will be in their fifties, and therefore they will go for the most competitive remuneration early on. While it is true that for some jobs in the UN system, there may be no acute recruitment problem at the very junior levels for the time being, organizations are currently encountering difficulties to recruit qualified staff in many areas, where we simply cannot compete with private sector salaries, or those of other international governmental organizations.

The best mid-level staff are hard to retain. Some organizations are experiencing that staff leave the UN system when they have reached P-3/P-4 levels and are in their mid- to late thirties. Regrettably, women make up a higher percentage of the “departees”. Many of the mid-level staff who leave are highly qualified staff who find that the requirements of working under difficult and often dangerous conditions and of uprooting their lives and families every few years are not matched by the commensurate financial incentives. We have reported on this many times to the Commission, most recently in the context of the review of the Mobility and Hardship Allowance scheme.

There is a serious recruitment problem at the senior and specialist levels. Mr. Chairman, the HR Network has pointed out on many occasions that it is very difficult to attract highly qualified senior-level staff at the D1 and above levels, and these difficulties are very directly linked to the uncompetitive remuneration package for this level. At a time when member states are calling for greater accountability of senior managers, and are assigning increasing responsibility to this critical group of staff, we simply cannot afford to not be able to attract and retain the very best. The imbalance of the scale at the senior levels has become a crucial matter, which needs to be addressed urgently in the context of the management reforms within the UN system.

The same goes for specialist positions, where the UN salary scale is simply not competitive with the private sector and other international and national research institutions. In fact, even the Bretton Woods organizations have already signaled that they are experiencing increasing difficulties in attracting, for example, lawyers, engineers and economists, because their pay is not considered sufficiently competitive. These are the very same occupations needed in large numbers by organizations of the common system.


Mr. Chairman,
It is not the first time the HR Network conveyed to you the concerns and views I just expressed. We have expressed these views and concerns time and time again, for some twenty years. The fact that we reiterate the same concerns again today should not be seen as a wish to be repetitive but as a reflection of the spirit of determination I mentioned at the beginning of this statement: We wish to help ensure that our international civil service will remain viable, competitive and equipped to drive forward and implement the much needed reform of the United Nations system. It is a challenge that concerns all of us. “Progress” reports of the kind that is contained in document R.10 will not rise to that challenge, will not get us there. What is needed is an in-depth review of the application of the Noblemaire principle, including comparisons with other multilateral institutions. Once again, therefore, the Network wishes to urge the Commission to consider a more comprehensive approach to addressing the challenges we are facing. All organizations of the HR Network stand ready to assist the Commission in this regard.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.