Welcome to the MSF Rewards Review website. 

This site provides information about this movement-wide priority initiative and allows you to stay updated on the changes in how MSF rewards its staff. 

Overview

Our workforce is evolving. More locally hired staff undertake senior positions and mobile staff come from more countries than ever before. At the same time, how we work is also evolving. New operational and support models increased intersectional activities and a growth of entities hosting staff from other countries are reshaping our organisation. These changes reinforce the differences in rewards between staff groups that our current rewards policies have generated.   

In response, MSF’s leadership directed a Rewards Review to ensure MSF has the global workforce needed to meet the humanitarian challenges of the future.  The outcomes of the Rewards Review include benefits and pay policies and tools that contribute toward a more equitable, transparent, and consistent approach to rewarding staff.

While the changes are broad, complex and will take years to fully implement, they are necessary to ensure MSF remains equipped to address humanitarian needs now and in the future. 

Why is this important 

MSF´s current rewards practices do not adequately meet MSF's needs and limit its capacity to prepare for future humanitarian challenges.  Several key issues highlight the urgency for change:

• Operational challenges: Rewards do not adequately meet operational needs, leading to difficulties in attracting and retaining staff, high turnover rate, and staffing gaps.
• Outdated policies: Rewards have not evolved in line with workforce trends.  Existing rewards policies do not support the effective functioning of new organisational setups such as regional hubs and hosting methods.  Additionally, external workforce changes are exacerbating the challenges created by MSF’s rewards practices.
• Inconsistent job valuation: There is no consistent approach to value jobs. Function grading varies across programmes and offices, with inconsistent definitions, job requirements and function structures.  The rapid growth of hosted functions worldwide shows the limitations of some local systems, which are not equipped to evaluate functions consistently or comparatively. The absence of standardisation and transparency in function scoring is causing growing challenges, particularly within intersectional hubs and operations.
• Inequities in Pay and Benefits. MSF’s existing HR infrastructure disproportionately benefits certain staff groups, resulting in unacceptable differences in pay and benefits. These differences in pay and treatment, often favouring mobile staff and HQ staff have deepened perceptions of privilege and inequality. Increasingly, these differences are viewed as evidence of institutional racism and discrimination within the organisation – issues that MSF’s leadership has committed to addressing. 

These long-standing problems have led to growing calls for change from MSF leaders, staff, and association members. Over recent years, these calls have become louder and more frequent. In response, MSF launched the Rewards Review to analyse these issues and determine the best path forward. 
 

Outcomes of the Rewards Review

MSF's executive leadership (the Full ExCom) has committed to implementing significant changes to address the issues identified by the Rewards Review. These changes include:

• A Global Grading Framework to ensure that jobs are graded consistently across the organisation and improve career paths.
• New staff groups - mobile positions and country-based positions - to replace the existing outdated staff groups.  This includes a single mobile salary grid and relocated packages.
• Changes to pay policy, including a living wage policy, changes in how individual pay is determined, a single mobile salary grid, and the removal of per diem.
• Global benefits , such as paid leave, healthcare and coverage in case of death and disability, to ensure a consistent approach to benefits for all MSF staff. 
   

Frequently asked question: 

More information can be found in Frequently Asked Questions.

Glossary: 

The Rewards Review and the implementation of rewards involve many new terms and acronyms. This glossary will provide you with definitions of the significance of these terms and the common terms used to describe the different aspects of the review.

More information

Townhalls

In March 2026 MSF provided a series of Town Hall meetings for mobile staff.  The purpose of these town hall meetings was to ensure MSF mobile staff are informed on the upcoming changes in 2026.  

Mobile Staff can watch a recording of one of the English town halls and the French town hall. 

Global town hall style meetings for all staff including country-based staff will be organised later in 2026.  More information will be available soon.