Outcome ALB_O_4

Nurturing an empowered workforce and advancing an inclusive UN-Women culture

Achieved. In 2024 the office successfully met all set indicators, thanks to the work ethics of the team, the inclusive culture and a positive, innovative work environment, and senior management continuing to foster an empowered workforce. Staff development was prioritized, encouraging employees to participate in online training and development programs offered by the UN Staff College, ECARO, etc. All identified courses were included in the 2024 CO Learning Plan, which was regularly updated with additional courses selected in consultation with supervisors. In addition, the CO launched the learning Fridays, organizing knowledge-sharing sessions on the last Friday of the month, to ensure that every team member who benefitted from training opportunities share key learning with the rest of the CO team. The office also maintained 100% compliance in completing mandatory UN Women learning courses. The office maintained 100% compliance with Performance Development Plans and assessments for the previous year, underscoring efforts to monitor performance, empower staff, recognize achievements, and set goals for future improvement. With onboarding of two new projects and departure of the former Head of Programmes, CO managed several recruitments during end of 2024 resulting in two promotions of personnel, respectively for the post of Head of Programmes and Technical Project Analyst with AICS. CO continued to hold regular staff meetings which served as key forums to keep personnel informed about new developments, programmatic initiatives, upcoming projects, and discussions with donors, while also addressing programmatic and operational priorities.

Nurturing an empowered workforce and advancing an inclusive UN-Women culture

In 2025, UN Women Albania strengthened its commitment to cultivating an empowered, inclusive, and high-performing workforce by investing in performance management, staff development, and internal Human Resources (HR) changes. The Country Office achieved 100% compliance with Performance Management and Development and Individual Work Plan requirements, ensuring that all personnel had clearly defined and performance-aligned work plans for 2025. Supervisors ensured quality and timely completion of all performance reviews in line with HQ deadlines, reinforcing accountability and alignment with strategic objectives. A key organisational development milestone this year was the transition of 14 Service Contracts to the National Personnel Services Agreement (NPSA) modality, which required updates to HR-related Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). The CO successfully revised its SOPs to reflect the changes, integrating improved processes for recruitment, onboarding, and contract management. This transition strengthened clarity, compliance, and fairness in HR processes, reflecting commitment to a more harmonized human resources framework. Staff were regularly briefed on these updates, contributing to transparency and smoother adoption of the NPSA modality. The office also continued to reinforce an enabling, inclusive, and safe working environment, maintaining close oversight over mandatory learning completion for Prevention of Sexual Exploitation Abuse and Harassment, Fraud Prevention, Cybersecurity, and other compliance modules. Follow-up mechanisms were implemented for pending courses, ensuring full adherence to UN Women’s duty of care and prevention of misconduct standards. Security and safety compliance was also rigorously maintained. UN Women Albania also succeeded in the implementation of its learning plan, including through creative approaches to addressing shrinking resources for learning. Every last Friday of every month, team members who benefitted from a learning opportunity shared their key take aways and relevant materials with the rest of the CO staff. Weekly whole-office meetings remained a valuable platform for transparency, open communication, and collaborative problem-solving. These meetings strengthened team cohesion and allowed staff across functions to remain aligned with evolving programmatic demands, operational priorities, and organisational changes. Worth mentioning is the positive visible impact of the Flexible Strategic Note Direct funding on UN Women Albania’s Organizational Performance, particularly upgrading planning, monitoring and reporting, UN coordination and partner convening, and communications and visibility. Together, these measures advanced a workplace culture that embodies UN values — inclusive, ethical, accountable, performance oriented, and supportive of staff wellbeing — while ensuring the Albania CO is equipped with the right talent and capacities to deliver on its mandate.

Nurturing an empowered workforce and advancing an inclusive UN-Women culture

This output was achieved in 2023 in all the set indicators. While personnel engage in different initiatives, they feel valued for the work they do, and that was evidenced in the results of the global staff survey. The workforce experienced an inclusive culture and positive and innovative work environment as this office continued to advance the nurturing of an empowered workforce. The workforce prioritized their growth, as UN Women encouraged personnel to enroll in online trainings and development programs run by UN Staff College, UN Women Training Center, ECARO trainings etc. All identified courses were included in the CO Learning Plan for 2023, which was updated throughout the year with additional courses selected by colleagues in close consultation with the supervisors. The office remained 100% compliant with the completion of the UN Women mandatory learning courses, including the new course on UN Women Information Security Essentials. Overall, despite ongoing challenges related to current country typology set up, existing personnel have high capacities and have ensured successful delivery of results. A testimony to that is the delivery and utilization rate for non-core and core resources, ranking the office amongst the highest performing offices in the region. Throughout 2023 senior management have exemplified inclusive leadership as a key driver of cultural change, supporting all team building and work-life balance initiatives. For the latter, an interoffice memo was issued by management in early 2023, in support of personnel’s requests for using FWA whenever needed, even on regular basis, but no more than 2 working days per week. 100% compliance with the Performance Development Plans and assessments for the previous year is another indicator of CO efforts to monitor performance, enhance staff empowerment, recognize achievements and dedication to the mandate, as well as discuss areas of improvement and refine performance goals for future work. Staff meetings have also been used by the CO as forums to familiarize personnel with new developments, new programmatic interventions, projects in the pipelines and discussions with donors, programmatic and operational priorities etc. In 2023 the CO was 100% compliant with other indicators, while progress was made towards indicators of UNDIS accountability framework, as UN Women led the training for Organisations of Persons with Disabilities on the UN recruitment processes. Completion of the UN Women mandatory learning courses Performance management and development Year-end certification on Prohibited Conduct

Nurturing an empowered workforce and advancing an inclusive UN-Women culture

Senior management focused efforts throughout 2022 to create an enabling workspace environment by organising several team-building activities. As well, personnel were encouraged to take learning courses for knowledge and skills development, offering opportunities equally to colleagues. CO personnel completed 100% the UN Women mandatory cources, including the newcomers, and 100% for completing 2021 end year performance assessment and 2022 PMD plan. To be marked is CO's very active involvement, both programmatically and operationally, in completing the relevant indicators from the UNDIS accountability framework. UN Women took the OMT chairmanship in 2022, leading the work in some indicators which were completed successfully.