Organisational and staff development (OSD) for the EMB’s staff addresses their long-term capacity-building and skills requirements, and also takes into account staff career development. OSD aims to unify the EMB’s strategic objectives and the skills required to attain these with the career and personal development goals of its staff. An active OSD element will contribute to the sustainability of the EMB.

It is important that the EMB develop both short-term and long-term strategies to address its OSD requirements. OSD requires a substantial, and preferably separate, dedicated budget, so the EMB will need to prioritise its training and development needs. For example, the Russian EMB has decided that training of core staff is its priority, not training of polling station staff.

OSD is based on a needs assessment, which the EMB may conduct itself or bring in outside contractors or management consultants to conduct. This needs assessment identifies all EMB tasks, compares the skill levels of staff with these tasks, and identifies the gaps – from which specific organisational and individual staff training needs, and the appropriate training methodologies, can be determined. OSD programs aim to train each EMB staff member to do his or her tasks with maximum efficiency and professionalism.

Depending on the needs analysis, areas which OSD could cover include.

a) generic skills development, such as:

• written and verbal communication;
• creativity innovation and enterprise;
• team building;
• critical and strategic thinking, and problem solving;
• self management;
• dispute resolution skills;
• project management;
• using technology;
• leadership, management, coaching, and supervisory skills;

b) technical skills relevant to the specific EMB division.

Staff development may take a number of basic forms, such as customized short-term informal training in the form of staff meetings and reviews, retreats and seminars, mentoring of staff by senior EMB or another organisation’s officials, and long-term formal training in the form of courses or academic development programmes. Continuous horizontal and vertical communication within the EMB not only contributes to development objectives, but greatly assists in maintaining organisational focus and improving staff performance.