USA 
United Kingdom
Janaina Tavares, Global Head of People and Culture at ActionAid International, joined the Global Secretariat (GS) in 2022, before a reorganisation in 2023 cut headcount to 100 down from about 160.
“We're in a sector that's shrinking," she said. "Our budget is not the best budget in the world, especially considering everything going on with USAID.”
Tavares outlined the practical changes she has implemented within the GS spanning: EAP, wellness dashboards as a board-level agenda, and simple changes with big impacts for the psychological safety of the wider team.
Global, local and everything in between
The bulk of the wellbeing work sits inside a set of global HR and organisational development standards (HROD global standards) which have been steadily updated since their introduction in 2009, two years before Tavares first joined the organisation as Country Director Advisor for ActionAid Brazil.
"When we're sitting in the Global North and we're in organisations that have people from the Global South, we think that the Global North knows it all. And we know it's not like that," she said.
Where local law is more generous, it wins out, and where the global standards rank higher, they supplant the local programme.
To give an example, parental leave under the HROD Global Standards is now set at a minimum of six months, and covers births, adoptions, and surrogacy, according to Taveres.
"People want to feel acknowledged, first of all, and they want to feel heard."
Listening to staff input across several surveys conducted in 2024 and 2025, there was a common thread among the feedback.
Namely, staff wanted feedback.
Tavares took the findings to a directors meeting with a proposal for a formal commitment to staff wellbeing which included no-meeting Fridays, and an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) with a local lean.
ActionAid's board now reviews a wellbeing dashboard, broken down by region, as a standing item alongside performance management updates.
"Our board has actually included the wellbeing dashboard and the performance management updates as an agenda item, an ongoing agenda item, which is very rare...some boards really don't care," she said.
Casting a wider net
Tavares stressed the importance of the EAP as it pertains to the work itself, and the ability of ActionAid’s employees to keep doing their vital work.
While the work doesn’t get any easier, the variables which Tavares and her team are in control of, are there to
Tavares explained her approach centres around whether people feel safe enough to reach out when they’re struggling, and whether their voice is heard when they decide to speak.
“We’re in emergencies. We’re talking about women and girls in very, very vulnerable areas, and in many countries mental health is still a big taboo. If I'm sitting in Burundi, I can just connect with someone in Burundi if I need some kind of help," she said. "And it extends to our immediate family."
Delivered through an app, the programme currently covers the 100 full-time staff across the GS; Tavares said it has been so successful the next step is a federation-wide rollout, which encapsulates more than 6000 staff.
Turning workforce data into early warnings for high-cost employees
“One thing that they really, really appreciated was that we extended it to their family, especially the ones that have teenagers. Depending on where you're sitting in the world, it's extremely expensive to get health insurance,” she said, adding: "Now we want to take it federation-wide. We're getting very positive feedback from countries that they would also like to engage with the system.”
Not rocket science
For Tavares, it is a matter both of personal conviction, and of evolving responsibilities.
“I'm a big advocate for mental health and staff wellbeing. In the end it doesn't matter if you're in a nonprofit or in the private sector, it's something that we must work on. If you look at the numbers, the country that I live in, Brazil, has one of the highest rates of burnout, and now we have a new law called NR1, where they're holding companies accountable for people experiencing burnout,”
In Brazil, where she is based, changes to the NR-1 workplace safety standard have, since May 2026, required employers to manage psychosocial risks such as burnout.
Tavares argued that none of this needs a big budget. Rather, it needs someone who knows: “how to look at it, and how to place it within our staff and within our policies."
A lifetime of listening and learning
After 16 years at ActionAid, Tavares said the biggest lesson has come from the work itself.
"The work that we do changes lives so much. And there's so much more that happens in the world that we are not aware of," she said. "When you visit a project, it just changes your perspective of the world."
With 20 years in HR behind her, she said she still doesn't assume she has the answers.
"You don't know it all. And things are changing, especially now, very, very fast," she said. "Ask questions and be open to learn. Be open to learning, be open to listening to people."
