Module 11: Local Staff Compensation
While some local community members will volunteer on an ad hoc basis as coordinators, health workers and permanent staff should be compensated for their work. By creating local jobs, global health organizations involve themselves in the economies of local communities, and must avoid disrupting the economic status quo. Paying higher wages at an NGO-supported clinic could make staff at other clinics demand higher rates from their employers, which may not be possible. This could create unnecessary demands and tensions locally. Staff payment must therefore be in line with local jobs of similar caliber, and decisions on local staff compensation need to be made by local clinics. Additionally, NGOs can build local economic capacity by hiring community members, and should therefore avoid hiring foreign staff to serve in employed positions.
“In determining how much to pay community health workers, it is important to keep in mind local pay scales for public sector employees, from schoolteachers to staff at health facilities. When a new CHW program is established in an area where community health workers already exist, the payment for both groups should be harmonized as much as possible.”(1)
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Footnotes
(1) “Community Health Workers: Payment” Partners in Health Model Online. Model.pih.org. Accessed on 12 November 2008. <http://model.pih.org/community_health_workers/payment>