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inclusion: Accommodating spouses/partners
:
External employment
1 A Center can provide two principal services to facilitate the employment of spouses/partners outside the Center:
- assistance in acquiring visas/work permits;
- advice regarding potential employers.
2 The first service is needed only for expatriate spouses/partners. The second should accommodate both expatriate and distant spouses. Local spouses would have no need for special support on this item.
3 G&D also has taken initiatives to provide support to facilitate employment of spouses/partners.
assistance in acquiring visas/work permits
4 This is the critical requirement for success with external employment.
If an appropriate visa/work permit cannot be obtained (or cannot be
obtained promptly), all avenues of external work are blocked.
5 Many Centers provide this assistance to spouses/partners after they have arrived at their duty station. However, this can be time-consuming and, in some cases, there is no guarantee of approval. One major improvement would be to secure the spouse’s/partner’s appropriate visa/work permit prior to arrival at the duty station.
6 Centers can work with host governments to establish a principle that when a staff member is appointed, it is a normal consequence that her/her spouse/partner will be provided with a work permit. Thus the visas/work permits for the couple would be processed as a package, early in the appointment process.
7 Establishing such a principle would certainly result in smoother acquisition of the spouse’s/partner’s work permit. It would also remove a degree of uncertainty for the spouse/partner whose employment status would not be subject to vagaries or delays with local arrangements for processing work permit at the duty station location.
advice about potential employers
8 Rather than deal with spouse/partner needs
for information on a case-by-case basis, it would be helpful for each
duty station to establish a database of potential employers. Typically
this would be the larger and most likely employers at the duty station.
The register should include features such as:
- the name of the employer, its location/s, proximity to the Center and any need or for special transport;
- types of jobs available with that employer;
- the various disciplines/competencies sought;
- the principal language in the workplace;
- contact names and phone numbers for that employer;
- the names of spouses/partners currently working for, or who have previously worked for, that employer.
It could also include links to job databases already established by other organizations.
9 The above list is not exclusive. Centers may well wish to add other features to their database/s. Current spouses/partners should be able to suggest additional features.
10 This database should be dynamic, reviewed and updated regularly in consultation with spouses/partners. This is a good example of the sort of activity that could be undertaken very effectively by the spouse/partner committee.
11 When recruiting new staff, Centers can then consult these databases when sending information packages to potential candidates. There is not much point in telling prospective candidates that the Center facilitates the acquisition of work permits for spouses/partners if, in reality, there are no likely employment prospects at the duty station.
© CGIAR Gender & Diversity
Program 2006