ABOUT BENCHMARKING IN MSF
In many countries where MSF and other NGOs work, reliable information on the labour market and cost of living is not available. This makes it difficult to know which salary levels and benefits are appropriate for locally recruited staff.
Through its Benchmarking Unit, MSF collects labour market and cost of living / workers’ expenditure information in the countries where the organisation operates. Professional analysts collect data and bring together information on salaries and living wages from a broad range of organisations working in the same country. MSF conducts such benchmarks regularly every three to five years in all countries, or more frequently when indicated.
The benchmarking methodology is a disciplined approach for determining the relative importance and value of different jobs, and the critical relationships between them. It ensures that jobs are compared based on requirements and accountabilities, and not by a title, status or other bias.
In order to ensure that jobs of similar requirements and accountabilities are compared, emphasis is put on the core content of each function, reflecting the level of responsibility (knowledge, skills and supervision level) and complexity of tasks.
The methodology provides consistent guidelines for every step of the process, from identification and selection of appropriate organisations, training and tools for the execution of interviews, ensuring that accurate and most needed information is provided, to the final analysis process.
MSF employs people for a broad range of jobs and skill levels who all contribute to ensure that MSF can deliver quality health care to those in need. Our workers are our greatest asset as an organisation.
We want to recruit the best, most committed professionals. We often work in locations that lack publicly accessible information on common market practice, cost of living and decent living wage.
MSF wants to ensure that our mandate can be carried out under the highest quality standards while at the same time ensure that our employees are treated fairly, money and funds are used in a sustainable way and local norms are respected.
There are numerous economic, social and legal reasons why we consider benchmarking essential: all our employees can provide for their families, the organisation can retain experienced staff, reward the intrinsic motivation that we expect from our employees. As an employer in humanitarian contexts we must take care not to be disruptive to the local labour market and comply with national and international labour regulations and norms.
MSF benchmarks are done as a combination of field and desk research, including data collection. But to put these data into context and ensure correct interpretation we also talk to people, visit markets, observe household practices and thus get to thoroughly understand the labour market and socioeconomic context of our studies.
Our analysis comprises the competitiveness of salaries and benefits as well as an estimate of the minimum household expenditure to assess the minimum income threshold that we as a socially responsible employer commit to meet. The studies also serve to confirm compliance in all missions with internal and external minimum standards and policies.
