Is Your HR Function Fit-for-Purpose?

Competition within the multilateral banking and international organization community is demanding. Although smaller, CDB competes directly with institutions like the World Bank and the United Nations in the same countries. Its biggest challenge in setting salaries for internationally recruited staff is attracting and retaining senior-level employees. To remain competitive and effectively serve the Caribbean, CDB has refined its compensation strategy by closely monitoring comparator institutions. By giving greater weight to salary data from other development banks for senior roles, CDB has better aligned its compensation progression with key competitors. Since adopting this approach, CDB has maintained its critical market position cost-effectively by focusing on these essential roles.

Across the UN system, there was no direct link between job evaluation and performance appraisal. Appraisals were based on cascading work objectives, linking individual staff measures to broader unit and organizational goals, but these were seen as unwieldy and time-consuming. The solution was a revised job evaluation system that replaced the traditional point-rating method with a values-based approach. This system established grade and factor values to reflect the unique demands at each level. To align with performance appraisals, complementary performance values were introduced, creating a grade-based framework with consistent measures for all staff.