An organisation’s greatest asset is its human resources: the EMB’s permanent and temporary staff, and those hired on contract. Unless the EMB safeguards the interests of its staff and responds to their concerns, the EMB may well fail to deliver successful elections. A staff that is not loyal to the EMB and its principles may frustrate the EMB’s plans and programs. They may be corrupted either by suppliers who want to win a tender or by politicians who want to win an election. Unhappy staff may strike even during elections and thus derail the electoral process. It is in this context that the EMB staff are key stakeholders who can make or break the EMB’s operations and reputation.

The EMB cannot assume that its staff will be loyal and automatically share and work hard towards implementing the EMB’s values: it needs to support and generate this loyalty and professionalism. There are many organisational values and policies that could be implemented by an EMB to assist this, including the following:

• treating employees with honesty, fairness, and respect and outlawing any form of discrimination against particular employees or groups of employees;
• fostering a culture of cooperation, teamwork, and trust among staff, with a safe work environment for all;
• designing staff conditions of service and salaries which are commensurate with those in other sectors, including the private sector;
• training and developing staff to enable them to enhance and diversify their skills so as to enable them to qualify for promotion especially within the EMB;
• encouraging staff to become professional electoral administrators and to align their interests with those of the EMB;
• involving staff in the organisation and planning of their work;
• developing formal and informal arrangements by which the EMB’s management seeks and seriously considers staff views on the EMB’s activities;
• maintaining information flows within the EMB, including organising regular meetings to brief staff on external and internal developments which may affect their work and future;
• familiarising staff with staff rules and regulations and the EMB’s vision and mission, through orientation upon appointment and regular follow-up sessions;
• organising social activities, such as sports days, family outings, and year-end parties, in order to engender teamwork and esprit de corps among the staff;
• acknowledging and rewarding unique achievements by staff, such as long service and outstanding performance.

The EMB needs to make a determined effort to support its staff, instil in them values of professional electoral administration, and respond responsibly to staff needs.

As a socially responsible organisation, the EMB needs to ensure that its policies and practices actively promote the health, safety, and general welfare of its workers, and provide equality of accessibility to its entire staff. Particularly during election periods, when there is intense pressure to complete tasks to deadlines and welfare safeguards may appear of lesser importance, EMB policies and practices need to guard against unreasonably long working hours, unsafe modes of transport, poorly ventilated and weather unprotected venues for polling and counting of votes, and leaving staff in venues where there is no access to clean water and lavatories.

Ensuring equal opportunities for appointment, performance, and promotion for people from all societal groups strengthens the EMB’s relationships both with staff stakeholders and with the wider community. This may include seeking balance in employment opportunities for people from various ethnic groups, or catering for any special needs of employees with disabilities. EMB polices can ensure that gender opportunities are equal, for example through flexible working hours, child care arrangements, mentoring, and staff promotion policies.

Through implementing polices and providing facilities that promote equal opportunities for all EMB staff, the EMB not only maintains a good relationship with a key stakeholder group, but can promote conditions that allow all its workforce to perform to its full potential.

Governmental Model EMBs, and those other EMBs which use civil servants as their staff, may be bound by civil service regulations and polices that may restrict the EMB’s ability to deal in the most appropriate manner with its staff stakeholders. In such EMBs, the relationship with its staff may be more dependent on the EMB management’s attitudes to staff - to values such as fairness, non-discrimination, free and honest information flow or staff consultation mechanisms – than on their ability to provide material benefits.