La gestion des ressources humaines dans les organisations non gouvernementales. Entrevues avec les directeurs des ressources humaines et enquête auprès du personnel de cinq ONG belges.

Abstract

This thesis explores the particularities of human resources management in non- governmental organizations in Belgium. It highlights the specific challenges NGO’s face and the methods they use to address them. The first part of this thesis presents the theorical approach of the subject. It firstly defines the concept of NGOs and presents the context in which they operate in Belgium. It then presents the scientific theory on human resources management. This subject being vast, it was necessary to concentrate the research on specific topics. We adopted the so-called “Employee Life Cycle” as our base theoretical concept to articulate our thesis. The Employee Life Cycle covers all the stages that an employee goes through in an organization throughout his career (from recruitment to separation) . Based on this structure, we organized our research and presented the different aspects of HRM and where the literature allowed it we covered the specifics of HRM practices in NGOs. Based to these documents, we identified the main issues that NGOs face in HRM. The third part of the thesis presents the methods used to try to answer the question: what are the particularities of HRM in NGOs? To do so we deployed an empirical approach based on interviews and survey. Firstly, We conducted interviews with the human resources directors of five Belgian NGOs. The purpose of these interviews was to question the HRDs on the real issues they encounter, as these particularities are not necessarily inherent to NGOs. Secondly, we launched a survey amongst the employees of these organizations to get their experiences and feedback about the HR methods implemented. The fourth part of the thesis analyses and interprets the results obtained. The results of the interviews were compared with the results of the survey and, also with the theory. The results from the empirical analysis reveal that the major challenges faced by HRDs is the employee retention. We could identify that this phase of the employee life cycle involves management of issues and solutions that are specific to the NGO sector. The employee survey helped to identify what are the incentives valued by the employee and that contribute to their retention. Interviews with HRDs revealed that employee retention is strongly intertwined with the mission and the values of the organization. And the organization's mission and values emerged as the primary incentive for employees. This shows that the specificity of the NGO sector impacts HRM as its guideline is based on values and mission. These elements also contribute to a stable and consistent work environment, which has proven to be the second most important incentive for employees. These first two incentives are the main elements that constitute the corporate culture, which is also very important in the interviewed NGOs. In hindsight, these incentives fall into the category of non-financial compensation. This has proven to be crucial in NGO HRM, especially for the retention process. All these elements, identified through the survey, are fully corroborated by the interviews with the HRDs interviewed, which also confirm that they deploy specific HRM methods to address these issues. The creation and maintenance of employee commitment generated by these different elements in their NGO is found throughout the employee's life cycle and constitutes the guideline for human resources practices in the NGOs interviewed.