Our directors
Our management team leads Oxfam Australia’s work by engaging our key stakeholders in setting direction and harnessing the passion and commitment of staff and supporters.
Photo: Nicola Brackertz
Structure
The Executive Director, six directors and the Chief Financial Officer form our management team. Each director heads a specific section of the organisation and is supported by business unit managers and their staff. Our functions and activities are divided into the following areas of work:
- international programs
- public policy and outreach
- development effectiveness
- operations and finance
- retail
- marketing
The management team is supported by three associate directors — a Chief Information Officer, an Associate Director International Programs and an Associate Director Human Resources and Development — to assist the management team’s work and specific high priority areas.
Role and processes
The Board develops policies that set the organisational results that the Executive Director must achieve and situations and actions to be avoided. The Board authorises the Executive Director to make all operational and strategic decisions, providing they are done according to the board guidelines and policies the Board sets.
The management team works together to achieve these organisational goals by:
- Providing leadership to individual sections and the agency as a whole
- Creating a supportive, motivating environment for staff
- Ensuring that we work effectively and meet our accountabilities to stakeholders
- Communicating our vision, philosophy and approach
The team meets regularly to address organisation-wide operational and strategic issues. Quarterly planning days are held to focus on strategic issues.
As required by the Board for succession purposes, the Executive Director is required to ensure that there are at least three directors who could undertake the role of Executive Director. When the Executive Director is on leave or overseas for work purposes, the role of Acting Executive Director is rotated among the directors.
Performance
The Board Chair convenes a small group of Board members to assess the performance of the Executive Director annually, considering a variety of third-party input received from Board members and staff members who directly report to the Executive Director.
The Executive Director conducts a formal performance appraisal with each management team member every year, using the performance management guidelines created for Oxfam Australia staff.
Salaries
Remuneration for the Executive Director and all directors is set in accordance with organisation remuneration policies. The Board sets the Executive Director’s salary and the Executive Director sets individual directors’ salaries.
Remuneration is reviewed biennially against external benchmarks by an industry remuneration consultant. After considering the consultants’ recommendations, the Board decided the Executive Director’s salary should be set at $230,000 and remained fixed at this level for three years, apart from annual CPI-related increases. It set the management team salary at $160,000 and gave the Executive Director authority to vary and individual management team member’s remuneration up to 20% above or below this level.
Management team salaries (including superannuation) at 30 June 2011 were:
Communicating with staff
Management team held a “question time” session during the year where staff could ask directors questions about any topic either in person, by phone or, in advance, by email. Recordings and transcripts of the sessions were placed on the intranet. Questions raised centred around the agency’s financial status, Board election results, organisational change processes and internal systems. The Executive Director also met with all units and visited state and field offices.
Ad-hoc lunch-time talks with the Director of Operations and an interactive blog by the Director of Development Effectiveness also provided staff with the opportunity to ask questions and share information. The talks covered topics such as culture and performance management, while the blogs were on issues such as monitoring and evaluation, future development and the performance of non-government organisations.
“What’s Cooking” sessions — which include all managers and two additional staff members from each section of the organisation — are held six times a year. Each session discusses fixed items such delivering change goals, performance against budget, and key agency-wide projects and initiatives, plus a “hot topic” for discussion.
The internal newsletter Watch This Space kept staff up-to-date with management team discussions and movements and other organisational news, while blogs on our intranet enabled staff to comment on questions and issues raised by individual directors.
A staff consultative committee, comprising two management representatives, two staff representatives and an Australian Services Union representative, met monthly with minutes recorded and posted on the intranet. Topics discussed included the staff classification system, the Certified Agreement, occupational health and safety matters and a code of conduct policy.
We are currently improving some of our joint communication forums following a survey with staff in 2010. These include a new format for the weekly newsletter and minor changes to question time and What’s Cooking sessions to improve effectiveness. We are also looking at other informal communication opportunities involved the Executive Director and management team members that can more closely involve overseas staff.
Training
Management team members attend a variety of leadership, team development and management training.
New management team members attended organisation induction training courses and took part in a tailored induction and probation process that are in line with Oxfam Australia’s induction process, “First Impressions Last”.
As part of a team building and business familiarisation process, several management team members volunteered at Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne. Management team also spent two days at a strategic planning session in April 2011, which looked at the agency’s growth trajectory, including income, programs and costs, and set directions and priorities for 2011–2012.