In the lucrative monitoring and evaluation industry, one thing is certain, an employee that stay for longer in the firm means stable clientele, and better program outcomes. This is not the case of One Acre Fund, or Tupande as it is called currently.
If you spent some time studying this company, there’s a high employee turnover pointing to one thing. A toxic work environment.
Investigations by nyakundireport shows an increasingly DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hiring that has filled the company to the brim with toxic gender homogenous top management in key positions.
Sources say that the hiring and programs management is full of women whose only work is to frustrate employees at the bottom wrung of the ladder. As the African saying gioes, where there are elders, everything is fine. There’s a common street saying, ‘where there are women, things are bund to go haywire, and that’s exactly what’s happening at One Acre Fund.
With a cacophony of women leadership in the whole human resources department, adding to the same synchronicity of emotions at the programs. Creative and straightforward male energy cannot survive the gossip, conniving and cut-throat completion for people, whom most ascendancy to that throne was through horizontal engineering.
See this, the global strategy and high-level operations are steered by Ruth Njoroge, the Senior Global HR Specialist, while Christopher Makokha oversees the Kenya HR Shared Services alongside Shared Services HR Coordinator Mercy Simiyu. Day-to-day personnel management is handled by Human Resource Officer Winnie Musyoka, and the organization's hiring and onboarding processes are driven by the talent acquisition team of Diana Majala and Gathua Muigai.
The organisation sells itself as a farmers-first mission with data, learning and accountability at the centre of the work. That public picture becomes harder to reconcile when the department that is supposed to tell the truth about programs is the one losing people.
Former and current staff speaking privately describe a workplace that looks polished in donor language and far less so inside the programs department.
There’s a lot of shifting priorities that leads to confused mision, these women managers – Mostly DEI hires, who escape scrutiny, creating an environment with little room to grow.
Case in point
In 2024, the Employment and Labour Relations Court in Nairobi heard the case of Daniel Ingutia Andanje versus One Acre Fund (Tupande), Cause No. E076 of 2023. Andanje, who had joined the organisation in April 2010 and risen to Regional Retail Lead for Nyanza on a monthly salary of USD 2,480, was placed on temporary leave in January 2023, subjected to a virtual disciplinary hearing in May, and dismissed shortly thereafter. He petitioned the court to declare the dismissal unfair, reinstate him, award damages, and refund Kshs 930,000 in school expenses alongside Kshs 10,100 in out of pocket costs.
On 28 November 2024, Justice C. N. Baari ruled that while the disciplinary process met the basic requirements of the Employment Act, the reasons advanced for dismissal were not valid. The termination letters cited a damaged work laptop, missing work, alleged false statements, and forensic costs of USD 4,187.60, trying to establish if Mr Andanje was telling the truth. There were other allegations of fraud levelled against the claimant that he was a cartel engaging in fraud and had acquired properties and businesses in Kisii and was also putting his kids in good schools due to fraud. Most of the claims were unsubstantiated and didn’t stand scrutiny of the court. The court found these claims circumstantial, unlinked, and unproven. Mr. Andanje’s reinstatement was denied because trust had broken down, but the court awarded him compensation of five months’ salary amounting to USD 12,400, a refund of Kshs 930,000 for school expenses, plus costs and interest.
This judgment sits within a broader unease among staff at One Acre Fund, still. Staff in Monitoring and Evaluation, finance, and field leadership have been leaving. An organisation that markets itself on impact measurement cannot afford to keep losing the very professionals tasked with measuring that impact, only to dismiss each departure as coincidence.
For most employees, pursuing justice through the courts is not an option. Legal processes are slow, fees are high. It is not a healthy workplace. Mr. Andanje’s case is one of the many, he reached judgment because he managed to place a file before a judge. The lingering question is how many others endured similar treatment but walked away quietly, leaving no record at all.
We have covered this entity before in 3 arricles. Here is one other article.