FAO 2021 Employee Recognition Awards go to 200 employees and 18 teams

Rome - Two hundred individual staff members and 18 teams were honored on Thursday at the annual Employee Recognition Awards event of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), a ceremony preceded by a Town Hall meeting and followed by an entertaining talent show, all conducted in “new normal” hybrid mode mixing virtual and in-presence formats.

Director-General QU Dongyu congratulated the awardees for their “determination and commitment, deliverables and consistency,” while also emphasizing his appreciation of the hard work of all colleagues around the year. “There is no FAO without you," he said.

Selected via a staff-wide online poll from more than 500 nominations, 100 Young and 100 Young-at-Heart colleagues received the corporate award, an initiative pitched by Qu in 2019 and since recognized and established by FAO’s Members.

The 200 individuals captured FAO’s diversity, representing 105 nationalities and 84 duty stations. More than half were women, more than two-thirds work away from headquarters, and more than one-third are consultants.

The team awards recognized exceptional efforts to work together – across divisions, offices and geographies – toward a “more innovative and impactful FAO,” said the Director-General, who presented colleagues with two hand-made calligraphies using Chinese ideograms to hail harmony and excellence among FAO employees.

Town hall

All FAO employees were able to participate in a Town Hall meeting held immediately prior to the awards ceremony and presided over by the Director-General and senior management.

Qu hailed efforts made by staff in all locations to deliver amid the challenges posed by COVID-19, noting that some have served in very difficult and risky environments.

He outlined FAO’s plan to return gradually to working in person, noting that it will proceed as conditions permit and that the high vaccination rate at headquarters and in Italy should allow , Rome-based employees to work from headquarters around three days a week by the end of February 2022.

Reversing some measures in the name of caution may be needed, he acknowledged, adding: “In all cases, the health, safety and well-being of our employees and their families will remain our primary concern.”

The Director-General hailed ongoing success in digitalizing FAO’s workplace with initiatives ranging from global public goods such as the Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform to internal protocols.

He also noted that an action plan created after canvassing of employees about working conditions was proceeding swiftly, including action on areas such as professional growth and recognition, new ways of working, ethics and communication.

He pointed to a streamlined and more transparent, merit-based Recruitment Policy while also urging staff to embrace professional development as much broader than promotion and praising those who have chosen lateral transfers or geographic mobility to further their service to FAO and build up their careers.

“Our main objective is to accelerate action to achieve the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals,” he reminded all. “Agrifood systems are at the core of all these global challenges.”

The FAO Strategic Framework 2022-2031 “means new narrative, new direction, new design and new package of solutions, and implies tangible changes in emphasis in what we do at all levels,” Qu said.

All staff, at headquarters and in decentralized offices, must ask how the 4 Betters – “Better Production, Better Nutrition, a Better Environment and a Better Life for All”- mean as a whole in their specific role and daily work, he said.

Noting he had declared 2020 as the Year of Efficiency and 2021 as the Year of Effectiveness, he pronounced 2022 as the “Year of the Extraordinary for FAO” and urged all employees to make extraordinary efforts required to achieve extraordinary results and be “extraordinary employees”.

The ceremony was followed by a talent show featuring a wide range of performances from singing, dancing to poetry reading by FAO employees around the world.