Job description
Background
Living goods works with CHWs who are healthcare workers in the community but not yet recognized in the government payroll. Community Health Workers (CHWs) in low income countries play a critical role in providing basic health care to the poorest families often in areas that do not have easy access to a health care facility, or where facilities are overburdened. CHWs usually come from the communities they serve and receive basic training to enable them to offer these services. While in some cases CHWs perform a wide range of different tasks that can be preventive, curative and/or developmental, in other cases CHWs are appointed for very specific interventions such as home-based care for TB patients. CHWs are increasingly seen to be essential in achieving universal health coverage, however the majority of CHWs in developing countries are still volunteers with some receiving a small stipend or compensation for travel, food etc. Supervision tends to be weak with supervisors either being facility staff who lack the skills or the time to provide active supervision to CHWs, or where supervisors who do not have the resources to make field visits.
Living Goods is keen to take its decade of experience directly employing supervisors and supporting 6000 CHWs and support government to adopt elements of our model that are integral to delivering high impact, low cost community health. Networks that we do not manage ourselves but where Living Goods provides technical support and coaching to other implementers and governments are called Assisted Networks. By the end of 2018 Living Goods and our partners will support over 11,000 community health workers (CHWs) across East Africa through both Direct and Assisted Networks.
The Challenge
Improving and sustaining the performance of all CHWs. As our model scales, we believe that improving the systems and structures around supervision and performance management are essential to for maintaining quality of care being delivered at the doorstep.
At Living Goods, we are passionate about using data to improve performance. At the community level our data is mostly from our mhealth solution which all CHWs use on their smartphones when they are in the field. Through the mhealth app (SmartHealth™) they can collect data by registering households, diagnosing sick children by completing specific workflows and recording treatments. With this data, supervisors can see on a daily basis from dashboards what CHWs are doing and track their performance over time. Supervisors should use this data to allocate their time to those CHWs that need the most support and on issues that CHWs are struggling with the most, but this is not always carried out in an optimal way. Moreover, as we scale we need to understand how we can structure staffing to maintain quality but enable scalability. Currently our model is heavily dependent on a high ratio of supervisors to CHWs which will become expensive and difficult to manage at scale.
Supervisors also have an app on tablets used to monitor supervisory visits and provide data on how CHWs are performing. Data collected includes CHW readiness for work and stock of essential medicines. From this data, the Managers of the Supervisors can also track supervisor performance. This data can be used to inform remuneration, because pay can be based on individual CHW and supervisor performance.
As we look to scale we are not only constantly trying to improve both what we do, but also how we can share best practise around the world with other organisations who work with CHWs. This is where we need your help to understand how to utilise our large quantities of data even more effectively, to help inform our staffing structures, how and when supervision is done and improve our performance management systems, processes and approaches.
What We Need From You
Objectives
Bring the outside in – help us to understand the best practices in managing field-based staff in other industries and contexts, and translating them into how staffing structures and performance of supervisors and CHWs who have limited education levels could be better managed
Recommend how Living Goods can better analyse/ make use of our data to inform our approaches to CHW supervision, incentives, programs and training
Provide guidance in Living Goods’ effort to build systems, processes and build the capacity of supervisors and managers to improve performance management
Key Deliverables
Framework and process for Performance Management:
Collate best practices in performance management for managing large groups of field teams that are relevant for CHWs.
Specifically, how to structure staffing and optimal ratios of supervisors to CHWs, how supervisors should spend their time to improve the performance of CHWs, who they should focus their attention on, how often, etc., what that supervision should look like to most effectively improve the overall quality of healthcare being delivered to clients.
In addition, as LG increasingly works with governments to adopt better quality supervision and performance management processes, specific attention should be paid to collating best practices that could inform LG’s approach to working with government health workers, given their different context, experience and skills.
Create best practice guide on approaches to performance management for field-based teams, including how we measure change.
Process, tools and system design:
Identify how this best practice translates into how Living Goods uses data and informs management, supervision, training, incentives payments and broader rewards processes i.e. how the type, duration, process of management and coaching should change and how technology can support this.
Create report outlining how Living Goods can adopt these best practices in our direct and Assisted Network models, and the ongoing changes required to continuously improve performance.
Create recommendations for how best practices can be supported by technology, specifically any adjustments that could be made to the SmartHealth and supervisor apps.
Test and Train:
Develop and deliver a pilot to test recommendations.
Deliver a Training of Trainers (TOT) for Living Goods employees who will provide training and coaching to Living Goods employees and other stakeholders.
Experience, Qualifications And Attributes
This work calls for a consultant(s) who is an expert in the field of CHW management. In addition, you will have an in-depth understanding of best practices in other fields and be able to translate this knowledge to our context.
A minimum of 10 years of experience in performance management working with best-in-class organisations, designing and optimizing employee performance. Experience of working in and/or consulting to non-profit organizations and NGOs is required.
Professional experience in the emerging markets is essential.
Experience of translating global best practice into management of field-based teams in low resource environments
Expertise from both different industries/sectors and an understanding of the international development context, as to utilization of data to inform how work forces are optimally motivated and supported
Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills
Proven success in managing multiple priorities and the ability to deliver in a dynamic and fast paced environment
Contract duration is expected to be no more than 8 weeks and is expected to be completed by the end of May 2018.
Deadline for applications is 19th March 2018.
