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NGOs & Foundations · Rural development NGOs
HR for Rural Development NGOs: Block Teams, Distances and Project Posts
A rural development NGO works through block and village teams on livelihoods, water, farming and women's groups. Staff are spread over wide distances, paid by project, and judged on results that take seasons to show.
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Share your requirementsA rural development NGO may support farmer producer groups, build watersheds, organise women's self-help groups, train youth in skills or help families reach government schemes. Staff include a state or district head, block coordinators, field facilitators who live near the villages, technical specialists such as agronomists, accounts staff and a few drivers. Offices are small and often far from each other. Staff may cover forty villages on a motorcycle, and a supervisor may see them only once a fortnight. Work follows the farming calendar and the monsoon, and project funds follow their own. See also HR for NGOs and social enterprises and the NGO and foundation group.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in rural development NGOs, you may see
- Staff cover big areas with little supervision
- The farming calendar sets the pace
- Local hires leave when the project does
- Good field staff become managers without training
- Staff are posted far from home
- Results depend on the community, not the worker alone
- Reimbursement claims pile up
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in rural development NGOs
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
- District and state programme heads
- Block coordinators
- Field facilitators and village animators
- Agronomists and technical specialists
- Livelihood and market linkage officers
- Self-help group trainers
- Monitoring and data staff
- Accounts and admin staff at block offices
- Drivers and field assistants
Where HR strains in rural development NGOs
Staff cover big areas with little supervision
A facilitator rides between villages for days, and the coordinator cannot tell where time goes except through reports.
The farming calendar sets the pace
Sowing, harvest and monsoon create peaks of work and idle weeks, and the project plan seldom fits either.
Local hires leave when the project does
Villagers hired as facilitators earn trust that the NGO needs, yet their jobs end with the grant and the trust goes with them.
Good field staff become managers without training
A strong facilitator is promoted to coordinator and has to lead a team, handle accounts and report to donors with no preparation.
Staff are posted far from home
Educated recruits from towns accept a post in a remote block and leave in a few months because of isolation.
Results depend on the community, not the worker alone
Yield, savings and water levels move with weather and prices, so judging a worker only by outcomes is unfair and misleading.
Reimbursement claims pile up
Travel and field expenses are claimed on paper and settled late, which strains staff who cannot afford to wait.
HR topics for rural development NGOs
Start with the topics that matter most here: HR Strategy and Workforce Planning; Performance Management; Employee Administration. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for ngos and social enterprises, not in general.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a rural development NGOs business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Plan the workforce by season and project
Map each project's start, peak and end, and see which posts are needed when.
What this coversHide
Plan the workforce by season and project
Map each project's start, peak and end, and see which posts are needed when.
What this coversHideMap each project's start, peak and end, and see which posts are needed when. The workforce planning work builds this view for several years.
Record field time in a simple way
A weekly plan and a short visit log per facilitator, checked by the coordinator.
What this coversHide
Record field time in a simple way
A weekly plan and a short visit log per facilitator, checked by the coordinator.
What this coversHideA weekly plan and a short visit log per facilitator, checked by the coordinator. The attendance and leave process can be adapted for field work.
Hire locally, with a clear end-of-project path
Tell village hires what happens when the grant ends, and offer a role in a federation or partner where possible.
What this coversHide
Hire locally, with a clear end-of-project path
Tell village hires what happens when the grant ends, and offer a role in a federation or partner where possible.
What this coversHideTell village hires what happens when the grant ends, and offer a role in a federation or partner where possible.
Train coordinators before or soon after promotion
Short modules on leading a team, planning a block and handling reports.
What this coversHide
Train coordinators before or soon after promotion
Short modules on leading a team, planning a block and handling reports.
What this coversHideShort modules on leading a team, planning a block and handling reports. The manager development programme fits this need.
Set results with context
Agree a mix of activity measures and outcome measures, and note weather and market effects.
What this coversHide
Set results with context
Agree a mix of activity measures and outcome measures, and note weather and market effects.
What this coversHideAgree a mix of activity measures and outcome measures, and note weather and market effects. See performance management.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- Map each project's end date against the staff who depend on it.
- Ask two facilitators how their week is planned and who checks it.
- Count how many block coordinators were promoted from the field and what preparation they received.
- Find the oldest unsettled travel claim and the reason for the delay.
- Ask a recent leaver from a remote block why they went.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the rules on project staff contracts, local hiring, volunteers and grant reporting that apply to a rural development NGO like yours.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
How GullyHR helps
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
- HR strategy and workforce planning
A seasonal and multi-year view of posts across projects, so that hiring and project end dates are planned together.
- Attendance, shift and leave process
Field time, weekly plans and leave handled in a form that suits staff who travel from village to village.
- Manager development programme
Practical preparation for block coordinators who must lead teams after being strong in the field.
- Performance management process
Targets that mix activity and outcomes and allow for weather and market conditions beyond the worker's control.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in ngos and social enterprises, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Management
"We need two more people": the headcount plan nobody wrote
Hiring decisions made one request at a time, in the month the pain is worst. What a workforce plan contains and why a twelve-month view changes what you hire.
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Industries
Measuring performance in chemical and specialty chemical makers: what to track and what to ignore
Measures that show how reactor, console, lab and gantry staff are really doing, the ones that mislead or bury near misses, and a monthly sheet an in-charge can run in twenty minutes.
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HR Process
One employee, three versions of the record: fixing employee information management
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Use a weekly plan, a short visit log and regular calls, then visit in person on a schedule. Trust the staff, check the pattern and hold a monthly team meeting to share experience.
Local hires bring trust and stay longer, while outsiders bring skills and fresh views. Many NGOs mix them. Be honest with local hires about what happens when funding ends.
Set targets in two parts: what the worker does, such as visits and trainings, and what changes in the community. Weigh activity more in bad seasons and discuss the context openly.
Training on running a team, planning the block, handling accounts and writing reports, plus a mentor from another block. Support in the first six months matters more than a long course.
Set a clear claim format, a weekly or fortnightly batch date and a named person who approves. Staff who cannot afford to wait should not be asked to carry costs for long.
We would ask which projects end this year, how facilitators' weeks are planned and how coordinators were prepared. A good opening project is a seasonal workforce plan plus a simple field time record. The scope is written down for you to accept or change.
More on HR for ngos and social enterprises
All 6 business types in NGOs & foundations · Find another business type
Education NGOsEnvironmental NGOsCharitable foundationsChild welfare organizationsHealthcare NGOsHR Strategy and Workforce Planning in ngos and social enterprisesPerformance Management in ngos and social enterprisesEmployee Administration in ngos and social enterprises
See all HR topics for ngos and social enterprises, or another industry.