We Ask Our Staff — and We Publish What They Tell Us.
Locally led means more than where our staff come from. It means they have a say in how the organisation is run, and that what they say is put on the record — including the parts that are uncomfortable for us to read.
Accountability Runs in Two Directions
Lifeline Gedo publishes its assessments, its impact reports and its programme results. It would be inconsistent to hold ourselves to that standard in front of donors and the communities we serve, and not in front of the people who deliver the work. Our staff carry the organisation. What they think of it is a legitimate public measure of how well it is run.
What Our Staff Told Us
The proportion of staff who agreed or strongly agreed with each statement.
Five-point agreement scale. Percentages show staff selecting “agree” or “strongly agree”. n = 71.
What Staff Asked Us For
Sixty-three people wrote an answer to the question “what would you like to see improve?” We grouped every comment by theme. No comment is reproduced here — some of our teams are small enough that a quotation would identify the person who wrote it.
Percentages are of the 63 staff who left a written comment. Comments often raised more than one theme, so the figures do not total 100%.
One in Four Staff Are Not Confident in Their Line Manager
Confidence in line management was the only question where a substantial number of staff declined to be positive. Eighteen of seventy-one either disagreed or sat on the fence. They are spread across every discipline and every length of service, which tells us this is not one difficult manager but a gap in how we supervise across the organisation.
Read alongside the written comments, the picture is specific rather than vague. Staff are asking for regular one-to-one supervision, timely feedback, clearer allocation of tasks, and managers who visit the sites where the work happens. Several of the most experienced people in the organisation raised it. We regard it as the single most important finding in this survey.
What We Are Doing About It
A survey that produces no change is worse than no survey at all. These are the commitments Lifeline Gedo has made in response to this round, and we will report against each of them when we publish the next one.
Strengthen line management
Supervision training for everyone who manages staff, and a standing schedule of documented one-to-one meetings between every staff member and their line manager.
Publish how promotion works
A written, merit-based framework setting out how promotions and allowances are decided, so that progression rests on performance and is visible to everyone.
An annual training plan
Built from what staff actually asked for — technical skills, proposal writing, monitoring and evaluation, financial management — rather than from what happens to be funded.
Be straight about contracts
Our contracts follow donor funding cycles, and that is a real source of anxiety. We commit to telling staff what we know, when we know it, rather than leaving people to guess.
Fix the working environment
Office space, desks, equipment and connectivity were raised often enough to be a productivity issue as much as a comfort one. We will address it site by site.
Ask again, and publish again
The survey runs annually. The results are published here whether they improve or not, and we will say plainly which of the commitments above we have met.
How the Survey Was Run
All Lifeline Gedo staff were invited to take part. Responses were anonymous: no names, locations or identifying details were collected, and results are reported only in aggregate. Seventy-one staff responded, covering every discipline in the organisation. The questionnaire asked for an overall satisfaction rating, five scored statements on a five-point agreement scale, and one optional free-text question.
Work With Us
We recruit locally, and we invest in the people we hire.