The Learning Curve

By the time July came around, the very steep learning curve I'd been on started to level off.  I had a grip on what needed to happen monthly and a general sense of what each of my staff did.  It was time to tackle some of the "big" issues I'd seen.

One of those "biggies" happened to be staff wage increases.  It was hard for me to understand that some of our staff were living on less than $200 per month and supporting their families this way.  Our office supports its admin functions (which include a 17-person staff) in five, fairly evenly distributed ways: 
1) 2.5% of missionary ministry donations and 5% of project donations
2) Interest on investments
3) Exchange rate gains and account charges for the SIM "bank" here in Kenya
4) Field admin charges each missionary pays monthly
5) Charges to other countries we for whom we do bookkeeping

The impact 9/11 had on the US was felt everywhere and Kenya was no exception.  Our (SIM's) investments had lost money (like many people's), but the loss had to be absorbed and so each country actually had to pay back into the international fund.  Donations were down, and consequently, so were admin portions of those donation.  Only field admin charges held stable.  (Implementing charges to other countries was one of the first things I did when I got here as half of the admin staff's time is spent on work for other countries, so that was a new charge just this year.)

Kenya's inflation rate over the last five years was at 47%!  Needless to say, with the downturn of the market and loss that SIM Kenya was facing, salaries could not be increased enough to meet even the country's inflation. 

We gathered data from similar organizations operating here in Kenya and did a salary analysis to determine how far below "standard" our employees salaries really were.  It was not a pretty picture.  So, with cuts taken elsewhere, and a small layoff, we were able to increase employee's salaries to almost level with inflation.  It was a huge endeavor with very hard choices being made.  We're still praying that the market continue to increase in order to help balance the hit to other areas of our budget.  Our staff is hugely important to us, though, and they've stuck with us through this really bad economy.  They are some of the most honest, loyal, Christ-following people you could want to meet.  They are worth 10 times what we can pay them!

We still have a ways to go to get on par with salaries paid by other organizations here in Kenya, but, God-willing, we will be able to adjust again with our new budget year.  Please pray for the Lord to open our eyes to ways of appreciating our employees that are within our bounds, and please keep praying for this market to improve!