Actually, I went to Ghana for reasons other than the full immersion experience into the Ghanaian Hospital system. The actual reason was to conclude our search for a full-time local manager.
Since the first of the year and especially after the client survey, it has become apparent that lack of day-to-day, onsite, local management was inhibiting our Participants development and therefore the projects development. Working with a number of our volunteers, we established the position expectation for this role and the criteria for screening candidates. We publicized this in Ghana and got over 100 applications in two weeks time.
Two of our volunteers, then screened the applications bringing the number to 12. I now became involved. We shed another 4. The remaining 8 were interviewed by the two volunteers. We selected 3 finalists. I conducted two virtual interviews with each of the 3. We were faced with a problem that our desired compensation range was far below the market's expectation. We were faced with a situation where after all this effort, might not have an acceptable candidate.
However, our number one choice showed a real desire to find a way to bridge the gap between her requirements and our capabilities. She suggested that we hire her on a part-time basis for three months at a a fraction of her compensation expectation so we could mutually prove to ourselves this was a good match. I was quite pleased to have this option and we accepted.
She will be starting this Monday. I am on my way back home. I will be back in Ghana in 7 weeks. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this will be the element needed to take our quality, and productivity to the level necessary that we can safely expand.
2 comments:
fingers crossed - she sounds like she is coming from the right place!
Yay! I hope it works out. I have learned, over the past few years, that hiring correctly is one of the most important things I can do to set my projects up for success.
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