Your Staff Union took a very active role in the Staff-Management-Committee (SMC) Working Group on Staff Selection and Mobility.
Intense consultations on mobility took place with management representatives in 2022 to shape this geographic and lateral mobility policy. Due to our concerted efforts in the consultations with management, the new mobility policy is only mandatory for newly recruited staff (those who enter on duty on or after 1 October 2023).
For currently serving staff (entry on duty before 1 October 2023): Your participation in mobility is voluntary. If you choose to opt-in when the exercise opens in November 2023, you will not be subject afterwards to mandatory participation in future years.
During the 2022 consultations and in continued discussions with management, your Staff Representatives took a firm stance that staff who participate in mobility exercises should never be matched to positions for which they have not expressed interest (this means choosing and ranking the position from a compendium of posts).
We must draw your attention, however, to the final policy provision that states (in para 11.3) that staff “may be matched with another position in the compendium in which the staff member had not expressed interest but for which the head of entity has determined the staff member to be suitable”.
While it may not prove to be the norm, staff may in some instances be matched to and placed against a position (or duty station) against their will.
Kindly note that the “safeguards” in section 14 that allow staff to remain in their positions only apply if they are not reassigned, meaning they are not matched at all.
We fully understand the complexity of this new policy, and we are available to speak with you about aspects of the policy or about opting in to the first annual mobility exercise.
We want to support UNOV/UNODC with the implementation of this new policy, while expressing our continued dedication to the positive opportunities and burden sharing inherent in mobility for the UN Secretariat.
Mobility page on Knowledge Gateway: Mobility FAQs (sharepoint.com)
