Chief, Staff Well-Being Unit, P-5, Division of Human Resources (DHR) - New York HQ, # 21652

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF defends the rights of every child. To learn more about UNICEF, visit www.unicef.org.

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.

For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

For every child, a better future

Reporting to the Associate Director, Division of Human Resources (DHR), and as a part of dedicated team, your role will be to lead the staff/employee counselling and well-being function in the organization, provide technical advice related to overall staff well-being to other Staff Counsellors in UNICEF Headquarters, Regional and Country Offices, and collaborate with UNICEF’s Emergency Operations Division, UN Medical Services, Staff Association and the Ethics Office.

You will also be responsible for managing the strategic planning, human and financial resources of the Unit, ensuring that staff wellbeing is an integrated part of the HR and corporate strategy and that its elements are aligned with mental health professional standards.

You will ensure mental health support is available to staff members and their families for individual counselling and other psycho-social needs. This may include travel to various UNICEF offices around the world.

If you are creative and passionate about promoting a healthy and balanced work-life of employees, this is the chance to make a difference by:

• Collaborating with the regional and country office Staff Counsellors, and with HR and other colleagues and leading the design and implementation of innovative strategies of the corporate Staff Well-Being framework aimed at improving staff well-being globally.
• Establishing strategies to ensure psycho-social support to leadership, managers and staff during emergencies and other crises, including by ensuring the Peer Support Volunteer programme and other short term interventions, are available globally.
• Providing direct and/or matrixed supervisory support and guidance to Headquarters and field-based staff counsellors, and coordinating their work, ensuring that effective and efficient interventions are used efficiently and that staff well-being programmes are reasonably consistent across the regions.
• Coordinating and cooperating closely with other Sections within and outside the Division of Human Resources, raising awareness and advocating for the staff well-being issues at all levels of the organization for effective implementation of programmes that improve the general well-being of staff globally.
• Leading or participating in various working groups focusing on the well-being of the staff oriented towards finding alternative and better solutions through policy changes or defining best practices.
• Providing overall financial and administrative management to the Staff Well-Being Unit including planning, reporting and performance management.
• Maintaining close collaboration with the Staff Counsellors in other UN agencies with similar programmes, sharing experiences and resources to the extent possible.

To qualify as a champion for every child you will need to have … 

• An Advanced University Degree (Master’s) in counselling, clinical psychology or related mental health profession or related technical field.
• A minimum of ten (10) years of relevant progressive work experience, at the national and international levels, in staff support, mental health, cross cultural communications, counselling, and related areas; of which five years should be international experience preferably gained within the UN system or the international development/humanitarian aid sector.
• Prior experience in leadership positions and managing teams.
• Fluency in English (verbal and written) is required. Knowledge of an additional UN Language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish) is considered an asset.
• Prior work experience in managing complex staff well-being situations is considered as an asset.

For Every Child, you demonstrate:

Our core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. To view our competency framework, please click here. 

This position is classified as “rotational” which means the incumbent is expected to rotate to another duty station upon completion of their tour of duty.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organisation.