Projects: Collaborate.Health
Improving Human Resource Management in Ethiopia
An Employee Reference Manual
- Agency Partner
- Lifebox Ethiopia
- Course
- Program Implementation for Global Health
Overview
Lifebox is a non-profit organization that aims to make surgery safer in four domains: equipment, basic safety checks, education, and sustainability. Currently, Lifebox operates in over 100 countries with its core offices based in the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2012, Lifebox began their operations in Ethiopia through collaboration with local partners to distribute medical equipment. Lifebox has recently received its official non-profit organization status in Ethiopia from the Agency for Civil Society Organizations.
Context
After achieving non-profit status in Ethiopia from the Agency for Civil Society Organizations Lifebox needed an employee management handbook based on Ethiopian regulations, requirements and laws.
Challenge
Since some employees have dual reporting lines with the United States and Ethiopia, the manual had to be compliant with standard rules and regulations from both countries.
Solution
Through extensive online research, the team created an Employer Reference Manual summarizing Ethiopian labor regulations with regard to equal opportunity, recruitment, interviewing and hiring, employee classifications, hours of work, pay periods, leave of absence, termination, and work conditions.
Results
With this manual, Lifebox will be able to construct an official human resources handbook for the Ethiopian office that is compliant with federal regulations and consistent with the Lifebox’s own rules and regulations.
Project Timeline
This project took seven months to complete from kick-off meeting to presentation of final deliverables. Click the button below for a detailed timeline.
View Project TimelineHuman Resource Management in Ethiopia
Partner Spotlight
Nichole Starr
Health improvement programs of any kind cannot be successful without realistic input and feedback from our local partners on the ground. Lifebox understands this and makes local input a priority in implementation. This resonates very much with my values for global health work and I look forward to collaborating with our local Lifebox partners here in Ethiopia.
Nichole Starr is currently a general surgery resident at the University of California, San Francisco. After graduating from college and earning her Masters in Public Health, she joined the Peace Corps in Ethiopia to focus on projects ranging from providing home-based care training to community HIV/AIDS health workers to creating a microfinance organization for rural women along with income-generating activities for homeless children. Through this work she gained a deeper understanding of Ethiopian culture and a holistic view of development programs from her perspective on the ground. She later returned to Ethiopia as a medical student to work with local surgeons on a project to assess barriers at the health center level to accessing surgery.
This experience showed her not only the creativity and tenacity of surgeons in Ethiopia, but also the huge gaps in surgical infrastructure there. When the opportunity arose to work on improving surgical safety with Lifebox in Ethiopia and the chance to return to my “second home”, she knew it was the perfect fit for her.