ERP Business Readiness Consultant, Jordan

Job Description

TERMS OF REFERENCE

UNRWA is a United Nations agency established by the General Assembly in 1949 and is mandated to provide assistance and protection to a population of some 5 million registered Palestine refugees. Its mission is to help Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and the Gaza Strip to achieve their full potential in human development, pending a just solution to their plight. UNRWA’s services encompass education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance and emergency assistance. UNRWA is the largest UN operation in the Middle East with more than 30,000 staff. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions.

ERP Business Readiness Consultant, Jordan

BACKGROUND

UNRWA is implementing a new Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) system that will fully support the needs of the Agency and enable the effective management of human, financial and physical resources.

The ERP SAP system implementation project has a defined 2 year implementation timeframe. The new system will cover the core business areas of finance, procurement, inventory management, grant management and human resources, and is expected to be completed by Dec 2014.

To ensure the tight delivery schedule is achieved the project is hiring external specialists for the role of the ERP Training Coordinator.

Description of Duties and Responsibilities

Under the direct supervisor of the ERP Project Communication and Training Manager, the incumbent is responsible for creating the strategy, plan, and performing or coordinating the tasks required to identify, create, and deliver all materials and activities supporting business change arising from the Agency’s transition from its current Ramco back office system to the new SAP platform.

Working closely with the Project Communications and Training Manager and Training Coordinator, the incumbent manages the day-to-day activities and processes of the Business Readiness function. The key objective is to manage the definition and establishment of all supporting Business Readiness processes, procedures, programmes and associated documentation and ensure that the Business Readiness process is effectively followed.

This role includes defining and overseeing or delivering all business readiness activities to support the Agency through this transformation including aligning processes and policies; defining roles; creating authorization rules; building a team of change agents; and establishing standard practices, processes and metrics relevant to readiness and training activities. This role will coordinate project activities with the Functional Stream Leads and through the Project Communications and Training Manager, ensure training materials and programs are aligned to support effective change.

Business Readiness Strategy and Plan

• Define and deliver all change readiness activities to support the ERP implementation either individually or by leveraging team members, including: overall change effort, business readiness strategy and templates, plan and execution;
• Create Agency’s Organization Alignment strategy resulting from the deployment of the new ERP system and provide as input for communication to the Project Communications and Training Manager;
• Prepare and conduct an organizational readiness assessment to determine alignment gaps and level of preparedness, once system scope has been finalized;
• Establish standard practices, processes, tools and metrics relevant to readiness activities;
• Coordinate change readiness activities into broader project plans with functional stream leads to ensure alignment.

Change Impact Analysis and Management

Using the existing stakeholder identification details, knowledge about current business processes, and the to-be business process descriptions, leverage the Functional Stream leads and perform the delivery of the following:

• Assess the organization’s readiness for change, identify potential risks, anticipate points of resistance and performance gaps and recommend remedial action gaps;
• Change impact description for all relevant stakeholders and stakeholder groups;
• Recommendations for essential change management activities;
• Input to the Training Coordinator for the training needs analysis;
• Input to the Project Communications and Training Manager for the value argumentation / key messages.

Using the above inputs, coordinate the delivery of the following among the Functional Stream Leads and key stakeholder departments, working directly with the business as requested/needed to align the Agency with the to-be system:

• Identification and assessment of Business Transformation opportunities;
• Changes to policies;
• Changes to procedures and technical instructions.

Role Mapping

Using role documents from the business blueprint, the current UNRWA organizational structure, current job descriptions, the to-be processes from the business blueprint, and knowledge about organizational restrictions, deliver:

• Description of the necessary roles (including new roles);
• Mapping of roles to positions to support the new processes (position mapping);
• Creation of a matrix to link positions to deployed business-specific jobs (to include current and new roles from current, new, and eliminated positions);
• Transition matrix for people to positions and new jobs/roles;
• Creation of recommended changes to the organizational chart, if required, to reflect the logical groupings of jobs and new reporting relationships.

The incumbent shall work with the Functional Stream Leads and, as required or requested by the Stream Leads, directly with the functional areas to perform these tasks. The incumbent shall ensure that role mapping is a priority throughout the project.

Business Readiness Review

The goal of this area is to ensure that the Change Impact and Role Mapping outputs and decisions from the above tasks have been properly captured in these forms:

• Working with the Project Communications and Training Manager, ensure that all strategy agency and other critical changes have been captured and communicated to impacted stakeholders;
• Working with the Functional Stream Leads, ensure that all identified changes and other impacts to operations have been prepared accurately through updates to policies, procedures and technical instructions;
• Working with the Solution Manager and Test Lead, ensure that Role/Position mapping requirements have been defined in test cases and are validated by users during test cycles as required, especially user acceptance testing;
• Working with the Training Coordinator, ensure that key Role and Process changes have been captured properly in the training materials, highlighting where key changes have occurred.

Other

• Resolve issues and risks related to change readiness activities;
• Perform any other duties as required.

Essential Qualifications and Experience

• Advanced degree in organizational behaviour/development, human resources, management, public or business administration, or relevant social sciences.
• Eight years or more of progressively responsible experience in in policy and process/procedure analysis and development; organization analysis and design;
• Exposure to HR management and processes within ERP systems.

Competencies

• Demonstrated ability to create and maintain policies and procedures;
• Ability to map processes to roles and organization structures;
• Demonstrated ability to manage projects and drive tasks to successful completion while relying on resources with no direct reporting control;
• Ability to communicate to a range of stakeholders the impact of role changes/realignments caused by systems projects, and work to gain their acceptance of these changes;
• Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively both orally and in writing in a multi-cultural environment with sensitivity and respect for gender and diversity;
• Knowledge of statistical preparation, research and evaluation methods;
• Proven ability in establishing effective internal and external work relationships at all levels;
• Ability to identify client needs and to provide solutions;
• Ability to work under difficult conditions.

CONDITIONS OF SERVICE

• The duration of the consultancy will be one year (extendable up to one further year),subject to a probation period of 3 months.
• Formal review of work performance will be carried out on a quarterly basis against the set targets,which will be agreed upon at the outset of the assignment,within one month from the starting date.
• The remuneration package comprises of a consultancy fee, applicable travel subsistence allowance for Amman, Jordan and a round trip ticket from the place of recruitment. The consultancy fee (all inclusive) will depend upon the candidate’s qualifications, experience and the level of expertise (starting at USD 10,000 monthly rate).

APPLICATION PROCESS

Each applicant should submit a cover letter (maximum one and a half page) explaining how she/he meets the above-listed competencies and a UN Personal History Form demonstrating clearly the knowledge and experience required to meet the consultancy requirements via consultancy@unrwa.org clearly indicating the title of this consultancy “ERP Business Readiness Consultant” in the subject line of the message. The deadline for the submission of applications is 17 March 2013 (late applications will not be considered).

UNRWA is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from both women and men. UNRWA encourages applications from qualified and experienced female candidates. Only those applicants short-listed for interview will be contacted. UNRWA is a non-smoking environment.

About the Organization

UNRWA is a United Nations agency established by
the General Assembly in 1949 and is mandated to provide assistance and
protection to a population of some 5 million registered Palestine refugees. Its mission is to help Palestine refugees in
Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and the Gaza Strip to achieve their full
potential in human development, pending a just solution to their plight.
UNRWA’s services encompass education, health care, relief and social services,
camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance and emergency assistance. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions