Technical Officer, Productivity and Working Conditions

The position is located in the Small and Medium Enterprises Unit (SME) of the ILO’s Enterprises Department (ENTERPRISES). Within the Department’s mandate to promote sustainable enterprises, the SME unit seeks to unlock the potential of creating more and better jobs in small businesses - a sector which provides the bulk of all employment. The unit works with governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations (social partners), the private sector as well as other relevant stakeholders and partners on improving the enabling environment for sustainable enterprises, delivering entrepreneurship education and training, integrating small enterprises into local and global value chains, and improving working conditions and productivity in SMEs (for more details see www.ilo.org/sme).

SME Productivity Ecosystem is a new technical area within the SME Unit. This technical area works on developing both enterprise level interventions as well as policy recommendations at the “meso” and “macro” level to improve the labour productivity of SME as well as address decent work deficits.The incumbent will report to the Head of SME Unit.  and support the SME Productivity Ecosystem work, which includes the flagship SCORE Programme.

1. Conduct relevant research and provide evidence-based recommendations to policy makers and social partners on how to improve productivity and working conditions at the policy and enterprise levels with particular focus on SMEs.
2. Provide technical advice and support relating to productivity and working conditions to ILO Decent Work Technical Support Teams in the regions and to ILO constituents.
3. Contribute towards adapting training materials for policy makers; oversee the organization of courses, workshops and seminars for policy makers, and maintain a roster of experts  for training activities and possibly various technical consulting assignments.
4. Coordinate partnerships with other concerned multi-lateral organizations including, but not limited to other UN agencies, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Asian Productivity Organization and other regional productivity groups, to promote higher productivity and better working conditions, gender equality and non-discrimination in SMEs. 
5. Provide advice and support to ILO field offices on the implementation of the ILO global programme Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises (SCORE), including the SCORE training package and its tools.
6. Contribute to maintaining the international SCORE Trainer and Expert Trainer network and updating the SCORE product offer.
7. Collaborate with representatives from multinational enterprises to promote and organize capacity development of SMEs in global supply chains.
8. Identify opportunities for development cooperation project proposals and formulate draft submissions to public and private donors.
9. Perform other relevant duties as assigned.

These specific duties are aligned with the relevant ILO generic job description, which includes the following generic duties:

1. Undertake research and prepare analytical reports on selected subjects within the area of technical competence.
2. Assess country experience (on selected topics) with a view to identifying best practices in finding solutions to problems identified.
3. Provide technical inputs (articles, reports) for regional, country or related sectoral analyses, ILO reports and publications.
4. Provide technical backstopping, project implementation and monitoring.
5. Undertake missions for the purpose of providing technical recommendations on selected topics following ILO established guidelines, manuals and standards.
6. Monitor and coordinate research carried out by external collaborators.
7. Act as focal point on a specific field of specialization.
8. Participate in training seminars and workshops as resource person.
9. Represent the technical unit at international, regional and national fora.

Advanced university degree in economics, business or public administration, social science or other related field with demonstrated expertise in the field of enterprise development.

Minimum of three years’ experience in the field of productivity at the national level and two years at the international level. Demonstrated experience in applying project cycle management, running monitoring and evaluation systems, and designing impact assessments.

Excellent command of one official language of the Organisation (French, English, Spanish) and a working knowledge of a second official language of the Organization. One of them must be English.

In addition to the ILO core competencies, this position requires:

Technical competencies:

Ability to participate effectively in technical missions and multi-disciplinary teams; capacity to provide first-line technical advice in the area of specialisation; the ability to conceptualise and design research techniques and analyse complex cross-national practices and data sets covering a wide range of issues in the specialised technical field; capability to guide and co-ordinate the work of external collaborators, general service staff or young professionals; ability to prepare reports and publications of a high quality, technically sound with conclusions leading to an action plan and programme development and ability to provide credible implementation assistance to senior specialists in carrying out research, project formulation and implementation; Capacity to provide practical technical advice on how to implement training and advisory programmes on productivity and how to handle related M&E issues, strong writing, communication, and presentation skills, strong social, organizational and knowledge management skills.

Behavioural competencies – Ability to work in a multicultural environment and to demonstrate gender-sensitive and non-discriminatory behaviour and attitudes.