ALIGHT reviews

- Lack of unrestricted funds to allow flexibility to do new project and grow efforts into other humanitarian efforts. - HQ does not seem to exist to help field operations. It seems there to ensure that field staff does not mistakes and to ensure fund execution since HQ has to live "hand to mouth" from the small overhead fees from grants. Not very innovative nor creative in business practices. M&E staff let go due to lack of funding which is a red flag since M&E is critical to show relevancy of work to donors. - No strong standardized policies and procedures which causes confusion and frustrations since procedures can be interpreted differently by different individuals. Different sites have different procedures and policies. - At field level, there seems to be a distrust of local staff. Little is done to build their capacity to ensure that they can be developed. Local salaries are generally lower than other bigger NGOs which causes a fear of loss of talent. - Organization of senior field management seems designed for conflict rather than team building. For instance, Program Coordinator, Finance Controller and Logistics are all separate at equal levels. This is okay in some instances but if there is disagreement, this causes the system to break down. This is exacerbated by the lack of standardized procedures. - Focus seems to be on re-branding image and program development rather than effective implementation of programs.

compensation, advancement, misuse of funds, employee egos get in the way of getting work done. I started as an unpaid intern (which is of course illegal, really) and when I finally got a paid position it was ridiculously low, barely a living wage. Senior staff didn't take the time to learn interns' names (and the headquarters office is tiny, so there was no excuse for this). I was under-utilized by supervisors. Instead of designing or improving programs, I was given menial tasks like editing terribly written reports