Reputation hero

Gerard Ee is no stranger to tough decisions. Even before joining the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) at the low-point of its public reputation (see: sidebar next page), the practicing accountant had dealt with numerous companies and non-governmental organisations in financial straits. Many required significant reorganisation and “right-sizing” of headcounts. Ee, Chairman of the NKF since 2005, says it’s never easy but focusing on fairness and constant communication can help smooth the process.

That’s the way he went about reinvigorating the NKF, and the values that he still ascribes to the organisation. “We considered all the different stakeholders – employees, donors (public), authorities, and patients,” he tells HRM. “We have to look for ways and means to deal with each of the stakeholders to achieve transparency.”

Rules for right-sizing

Ee says reinvigorating an organisation that had been bloated and overstaffed for many years was no easy task. Obviously, there was a need to downsize. Indeed, the new management, with Ee at the helm, would reduce the total headcount by almost half. The 1000 staff still on the books at NKF in July, 2005, were reduced by 400 over the next few months. “That is pretty dramatic,” he says. While, he had worked with winding up insolvent organisations previously, this was the first (and last) downsizing of such scale.

“The most important thing is not to pretend that you know how to handle such a thing,” he says. In light of this, he says the new management team at NKF actually had to begin the task by recruiting. “We went out and we recruited consultants to come in and guide us in the thought process,” he says. “In so doing, we also realised it was an opportunity to establish to remaining staff what the new management stood for – (that) we believe in fairness; we believe in a level playing field; and we believe in treating people compassionately.” This meant having sensitivity to those leaving as well as those staying.

Ee and his team worked hard to secure new employment for those being terminated. “On the day when we announced to the staff that were affected, we had a mini-job fair organised on site,” he said. “We located organisations that were recruiting the type of staff that we were releasing – or at least we thought would consider recruiting.”

NKF also had counselors on site throughout the retrenchment period. “We realised that for some it could be a traumatic experience,” Ee said, noting that many of the remaining 600 staff were also affected emotionally. “Even those that retained their jobs could feel traumatised if their close friend had lost his job.”

Care was also taken to ensure an equitable distribution of benefits between local staff, and international workers who were provided with flights home. Locally retrenched staff were given equivalent benefits in healthcare. “We took the value of the airfares and we bought health insurance to cover for the local staff.”

Values

With staffing numbers manageable, Ee’s next job was to restore the tattered public profile and reputation of the NKF organisation. For this, he says the standard routine of a certified practicing accountant provided the best possible playbook.

“The most important first step in any audit is to understand the client’s business,” he says. “After 30 years of that discipline, it didn’t take me long to begin to work out what NKF is all about and what it should be focusing on. Once you have figured it out it’s a matter about being very focused and anchoring it back to its mission and its vision.”

One of the clearest issues that came out of the scandals surrounding the NKF had been a lack of transparency. There was significant shock across the general public at some of the largess that had been laid out to leaders and staff. For an organisation surviving on donated funds, that was a recipe for disaster.

So Ee was quick to open up the books – providing clear and written statements to all stakeholders, including NKF staff. “We go all out to provide the stakeholders whatever information they needed to understand the state of affairs of NKF,” he says.

That included reaching out to the general public to give it a sense of “ownership” over the organisation once more. For example, locals are often given a look inside some of the facilities that NKF maintains on their behalf. “We opened up the doors to all our dialysis centres,” he says. “We told the residents that ‘this is theirs’.”

“By making them feel like a stakeholder, it’s so much easier to get their support,” Ee says. “It’s in their vested interest to ensure (each) centre continues to run well.”

NKF today

NKF’s headcount has since grown to a “sustainable” 680 staff, more than 500 of whom are essential medical staff. The remainder include fundraising, logistics, administration and support personnel. But the organisation still suffers from the increasing shortage of skilled talent in the Asia region.

“We continue to face challenges in recruiting adequate nurses and doctors – nationwide there is a shortage,” Ee says. That’s made even more difficult by what is seen as a static career option. “Even if we offer the same salary; there’s a limited career path for a doctor or nurse that comes to work for NKF.”

Ee and his team have developed a number of innovative ways to make up the shortfall. One involves a campaign of volunteerism, or pro-bono work, from outside doctors and nurses. Each volunteers a few hours extra per week to help the NKF's backlog of patients.

NKF is also encouraging retired nurses back into the workforce, offering flexible hours and other benefits. “We are even offering scholarships – for those who haven’t obtained their graduate degree – but who have just got the basic nursing skills.”

Even with these ideas in play, Singapore’s medical community still faces a shortfall of talent. NKF therefore takes a significant number of staff from overseas sources. “We’re still highly dependant on foreign nurses,” Ee says. “But as emerging countries develop their own economies, even this source will dry up - hopefully Singapore can generate enough interest for Singaporeans to take up nursing and increase the (local) pool.”