Enterprise Advisor

The ready-made garment (RMG) sector in Bangladesh has experienced rapid growth over the past 20 years; it is now the country’s largest export earner and employs over 4 million workers – of which 60% are women – in approximately 4,000 active factories. It is currently the 2nd largest exporter of RMG in the world.

It is generally considered though those problems related to a lack of skilled workers, infrastructure, social compliance, and labour-management relations hamper growth. There exist significant issues in many factories around occupational safety and health (OHS), working conditions, wage payments, freedom of association, and the lack of effective human resource management. In addition, weaknesses in national labour administration, industrial relations and social dialogue systems exacerbate and prolong non-compliance with national laws and regulations.

To address these challenges, BWB aims at building the necessary capacity so that stakeholders can identify, prevent, and address relevant problems. In practical terms this means that BWB operates on two levels: (1) Factory-level: build in-factory capacity to improve working conditions and establish management systems and (2) institutional level: assist in building constituent capacity to achieve structural, sustainable change in labour administration, industrial relations and social dialogue systems.

Function:

To provide professional-level enterprise advisory services including the conduct of independent enterprise assessments against labour standards and the provision of enterprise-level consultancy services to support remediation and enterprise improvement. Enterprise assessments and progress reports will be accessed by enterprises, international buyers and government ministries and will contribute to public reporting. The work of enterprise advisers has a direct impact on enterprise performance and access to markets. The position will be based in Dhaka.

Supervision:

Under the overall guidance of the Director, ILO Country Office for Bangladesh, and the general supervision of the Better Work Bangladesh Programme Manager, the Enterprise Adviser will work under the direct supervision of a National Team Leader. Judgement, initiative, and creativity are required in translating project tools and approaches at the enterprise level. The work product is controlled by the supervisor for technical soundness and appropriateness. 

Description of Duties:

• Independently conduct enterprise assessment of labour standards and management systems at the enterprise level.
• Independently produce high-standard reports in English on (i) assessment findings, (ii) recommendations for improvement, (iii) enterprise improvement plans and (iv) progress reports on implementation.
• Review the reports of other advisors as part of the peer review Better Work quality assurance system.
• Provide high-quality enterprise-level consultancy services designed to improve enterprise performance including coaching, facilitating management and union improvement committees, providing technical advice and conducting classroom-based training.
• Select and adapt and contextualize Better Work products for use at the individual enterprise level based on needs.
• Provide technical advice and input into the development of Better Work research, products, and strategies.
• Actively contribute to the project’s monitoring and evaluation strategy, research agenda and knowledge management strategy.
• Contribute to the financial sustainability strategy of the project including encouraging the participation of enterprises in project activities, a strong outcome focus, and effective time management of consultancy services.
• Work closely with national constituents to support them implementing services in the industry.
• Other duties as required by the supervisor.

Required qualifications:

Education:

• University degree in in, international development, law, occupational health and safety, industrial engineering, industrial relations, gender studies, human resource management, adult education or other relevant fields, or equivalent in experience.

Experience:

• At least two years of professional experience in social dialogue, capacity building in the private sector in developing countries, corporate social responsibility (particularly in the field of labour standards compliance and remediation), occupational health and safety, behavioral change, industrial engineering, industrial relations or other relevant fields.

Languages:

• Excellent command of written and spoken both in English and Bengali.

Source: https://jobs.ilo.org/job/Dhaka-Enterprise-Advisor-NOA-(DC)/1090163101/