Catholic Relief Services Reviews

There is deep inequity and pay disparity between local and expat staff. CRS says they are pushing for equity, but recent events make me doubt that they will ever change. I have seen local staff offered laughable salaries, even when they had multiple masters degrees and years of work experience in the national government. These salaries are less than the "fellowship stipend" given to international development fellows, even though the staff would hold important positions in program management and would have much more important responsibilities than fellows. Local staff end up taking expat positions in other countries because there is no room for growth in their own country. This leads to a "brain shuffle" where people take work in neighboring countries, even though they could have a greater impact in their own. I have heard senior staff at HQ telling international development fellows that CRS needs expats because there are not enough qualified staff in the countries where they work. This has not been my experience at all. Rather, CRS is not willing to pay qualified staff a fair salary in the countries where they work. They prefer to pay expats 2-3X a national staff salary than put forth the effort to hire and retain staff in country. Staff are often overworked and underpaid.

-Working in HR has been a rollercoaster - It used to be bad, then great, then bad again. The current HR EVP talks a lot about respect in the organization but does not model it in her own work. She is also not receptive to ideas differing from her own and seems to value status of position over the experience and knowledge of the HR professionals on the team. I expect someone new will come in eventually but would expect a large number of very talented staff will have left by then. -Not much room for growth in HR - there seems to be a preference to hire externally rather than develop from within -Last engagement survey results were very low because people felt overworked and underappreciated - no action seems to have been taken to make these numbers go anywhere but down