Location: Edinburgh, London, UK, or The Hague, NL
Position: Status Full-time, Permanent
Reporting to: HR Director, Europe
Travel: Up to 10%. Occasional travel within Europe and possibly to programme locations.**
Salary: London: circa 43K, Edinburgh: circa 36.5K, Netherland: circa 44.5K
Closing Date: **Apply with CV, cover letter, and writing samples and/or portfolio before end of October 2021.
Applications are reviewed on rolling basis chronologically.
Candidates must have the right to work for UK or EU at the time of application.
Mercy Corps is a leading global organisation powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In conflict, in disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within. Now, and for the future.
Mercy Corps in Europe has grown rapidly in terms of volume of activity and complexity. With offices in Edinburgh, London, Geneva and The Hague we now attract over £90m in income, and employ around 130 domestic and expatriate field team members. The breadth and impact of our programmes makes Mercy Corps a unique and truly rewarding place to work. Our teams are proud of what we achieve in the field and we are always looking for talented individuals who share our passion and commitment.
The Role
At Mercy Corps, Safeguarding is a holistic term that encompasses our work to prevent, deter, detect and respond to issues involving Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Program Participants and Community Members, Sexual Harassment in the Workplace and Child Safeguarding. Complementing our Safeguarding work is our Gender, Diversity and Inclusion (GDI) priority, which is a multi-year participatory, inclusive process that endeavors to facilitate living and breathing our Mercy Corps culture and values by ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion within our workplace, our teams and our work with the community.
Mercy Corps has been engaging with key stakeholders in leading the humanitarian and development sector to prevent and improve responses to safeguarding violations and build a culture that supports the safety of team members and the community members we work with. Mercy Corps Europe now seeks to engage an experienced safeguarding professional to support the global organisation’s efforts in this area. This position will contribute to the agency’s strategic vision and to the cross-functional work-streams within our global organisation to improve our systems and culture of safeguarding and inclusion--operationalizing and embedding it into the day-to-day culture of the organisation, as well as represent the organisation externally in promoting and learning best practices in safeguarding in Europe and other locations as relevant.
The Safeguarding & Inclusion Advisor will input to the global Safeguarding Strategy and GDI initiatives and promote, adapt and implement them to the European context while ensuring coordination and harmonization with the global efforts. Participating in the European People, Global Safeguarding and GDI teams, the Safeguarding & Inclusion Advisor will provide leadership internally and externally, proactively identify areas requiring action and actively advocate for the implementation of evolving industry best practice.
Key Responsibilities:
Technical Leadership:
Prevention
Develop and facilitate training for existing staff on organisational safeguarding expectations in alignment with the global safeguarding strategy. Where possible, tailor training to specific programme needs. Do so in a manner that then promotes a comprehensive positive safeguarding culture at Mercy Corps.
Risk Mitigation in Programs
Provide technical advice and input on the corporate risk register, ERM and country risk registers on emerging risks, especially around child safeguarding and preventing sexual exploitation and abuse of beneficiaries. When needed, provide support to develop risk registers as needed for specific programmes/ donors.
Gender Diversity and Inclusion
Promote inclusion as a key component of Mercy Corps safeguarding approach for Europe-based team members.
Partner with the HR Director, Europe to move forward the strategy and implementation of GDI-focused initiatives in Europe..
Coordinate with the Global GDI Team and GDI Core Team to ensure European representation in GDI initiatives while also ensuring alignment of Europe-focused workstreams with global priorities.
Act as a reference and point of contact for team members based in Europe to enhance engagement on GDI priorities.
Human Resources Policies and Procedures
Continue to review and revise European policies and procedures for criminal background and reference checks as well as continued implementation of the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme..
Participate in safeguarding related working groups focused on enhancing the employee lifecycle (such as Bond-facilitate initiatives).
Evaluate candidate vetting and recruitment processes to enhance safeguarding and inclusion related best practices..
Support agency efforts to strengthen safeguarding in recruitment, improve support to field-based HR colleagues and provide additional capacity to the rollout and ongoing administration of the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme..
Reports Directly To: HR Director, Europe with indirect reporting relationship to the Global Safeguarding Director and Director of Gender, Diversity and Inclusion.
Works Directly With: European People team, Global People Team, European Director of Compliance, Governance & Risk, Global Safeguarding team, Global Gender, Diversity and Inclusion team.
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.
This position is based in Edinburgh, London or The Hague. The successful candidate may travel up to 10% of the time, primarily to promote engagement and coordination within Mercy Corps’ Europe-based team. Some occasional travel to programme locations in support of global initiatives is possible.
In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development
Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.
We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.
Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.
We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.
Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.
This vacancy is archived.