Organisational Culture Matters: Leadership, staff well-being and living our values
Overview
On 3 December 2020, the webinar “Organisational Culture Matters: Leadership, staff well-being and living our values” was organised by ICVA, the CHS Alliance, and PHAP. Liza Jachens, Organisational Psychologist at Webster University, Ann Muraya, Director of Organisation Health for Thrive Worldwide, Melissa Pitotti, consultant for the ICVA-CHS Alliance joint project looking at the CEO role in driving organisational culture change and co-Initiator of the CHS Alliance Initiative to Cultivate Caring, Compassionate Aid Organisations, together with CEOs Amanda Khozi Mukwashi, of Christian Aid, and Dhananjayan (Danny) Sriskandarajah, CEO of Oxfam GB, shared their own experiences leading culture change within their organisations where top management plays a critical role in managing risks and ensuring that staff and those we assist in our day-to-day work are cared for.
Recording
Podcast
Listen to "“Organizational culture matters”: Leadership, staff well-being, and living our values" on Spreaker.
A briefing paper on this joint ICVA-CHS Alliance project on the CEO role in driving culture change to enable a positive workplace culture, safeguard staff well-being will be shared soon.
This webinar is the fourth webinar of the Learning Stream on Risk Management in Practice.
Why this topic?
Humanitarian organizations have faced situations reminding us that how we carry out our work is as important as what we do – including how agencies approach the mental and physical well-being of staff members to avoid long-term exhaustion, burnout, injury, or illness. Apart from the direct impact to individual staff members when the duty of care is compromised, organizations also face potential risks of an operational, reputational, safety and security, fiduciary, or legal and ethical nature.
Length: 90 minutes
Event objective/focus: have an open dialogue on the challenges faced by humanitarians in their work environments, how to improve the levels of care for humanitarian staff and build supportive organizational culture as well as provide insights into solutions to improve the ability of senior executives to promote the necessary change.
Target audience: Senior managers, all practitioners interested in risk management and humanitarian policy issues, particularly NGO staff.
Speakers:
Melissa Pitotti
Consultant and author of the forthcoming report
Dr. Liza Jachens
Research Associate and Lecturer, Webster University, Geneva, Switzerland
Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah
Chief Executive, Oxfam GB
Amanda Khozi Mukwashi
CEO and directors, Christian Aid
Co-facilitators:
Jeremy Rempel
Head of Humanitarian Financing, ICVA

Recommended reading:
- The CHS Alliance, The Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability Updated Guidance Notes and Indicators
- Melissa Pitotti and Mary Ann Clements, “Working Well? Aid worker well-being and how to improve it” for CHS Alliance, 2020
- IASC Minimum Standards for Duty of Care during COVID
- ICVA’s 2020 Annual Conference “Protecting principled humanitarian action: an honest conversation on risk”, 19 March 2020
- ICVA’s briefing paper “Reinforce, Reinforce, Reinforce: Localisation in the COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response” (30 March 2020)
- ICVA’s Risk Management resource page
- ICVA briefing paper, "Risk and Humanitarian Culture"