Technical skills
The team’s success depends on having an adequate and appropriate level of technical expertise to respond appropriately to the site’s social performance challenges and opportunities. While these may be modified depending on the context, some typical competencies for a Social Performance Manager could include the following:
- Graduate qualification in environmental science, sociology, anthropology, natural-resource management or a related discipline.
- Demonstrated extractive and/or infrastructure sector knowledge gained through industry, financial institution or consultancy roles.
- Experience of delivering Social Performance to international standards, notably Performance Standards, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, Principles and labour standards.
- Experience of designing Social Performance activities to deliver and maintain Social Licence to Operate.
- Implementation of Social Performance management systems and social-impact management plans across business and project activities.
- Demonstrated experience of developing and implementing community consultation plans, including grievance management.
- Experience in developing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating socio-economic development programmes.
- Understanding of environmental issues and their Social Performance implications.
- Proven delivery of succinct, analytical reports to a senior management audience.
- Experience of managing people and budgets.
Additional competencies for planning and implementation may also include:
- Development sector project design and management
- Collaboration skill and partnership brokering
- Management of implementation partners
- Management of complex socio-economic, political and environmental environments and the associated internal and external stakeholder relationships
- Socio-economic field research planning and implementation
- Socio-economic data analysis
- Monitoring and evaluation design and management, indicator development
- Writing skills
Please contact Group Social Performance for standardised role profiles to support which may assist in determining the skills required to resource an effective Social Performance team.
Non-technical hiring considerations
In addition to technical skills, several complementary ‘non-technical’ competencies should also be sought in candidates, including:
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Ability to integrate Social Performance across the business
To work effectively across an organisation, social performance teams should have interpersonal skills that allow them to influence, negotiate and communicate with site leadership and Heads of Departments. Consider the following when resourcing a team:
- Are there individuals in the team with the ability to communicate complex community issues in a manner that the rest of the business easily understands and who are able to develop clear business cases for required management actions?
- Are there individuals with deep experience of negotiation, building dialogue on complex issues, and conflict resolution?
- Are there individuals in the team with strong project-management skills, including the ability to monitor and report against in a consistent manner?
Additional ‘non-technical' competencies that should be sought in candidates include strong communication and interaction skills with external stakeholders, in particular community members, ability to work under ambiguity and in a team setting.
Recruitment timing – right people at the right time
Link the social performance skill-sets to the relevant phase of the mining lifecycle. For example, Discovery activities will need people with land-access negotiation skills. During the transition to the Project Development phase, experience working with large-scale contractors and consultants (e.g. for development) becomes vital. Proactive recruitment of community engagement staff allows the right people to be found, as well as time for training to build an understanding of the business, Anglo American values and site-specific key messages. A critical element of this will be developing and planning a resourcing and training / capacity development plan for social performance acknowledging the different skills and work that might be required as the operation evolves.
Recognising potential for conflict of interest
Community engagement staff can be placed in a difficult position when recruited from the Area of Influence. There can be a tension that local staff can face as the ‘middle person’ between their own community and their employer. It is recognised that Anglo American needs to recruit staff locally and that there are significant advantages to recruiting people from the affected/host community (knowledge of local languages and context etc). However, managers should be aware of the potential for perceived or actual conflicts of interest and the personal strain on an individual that this can bring. One way of mitigating this is to rotate staff (where feasible) and avoid giving compensation and benefit-sharing roles to persons working within their own community.
Other factors
Other factors to consider when reviewing the composition of a team include:
- Does the team reflect Anglo American’s inclusion and diversity principles and the diversity of host communities?
- Are there individuals in the team who are able to engage credibly with vulnerable groups, elders and traditional leaders?
- Are local languages spoken by the team to allow all community voices to be heard?