Group HR Director

Inspired was founded by Nadim M Nsouli following the acquisition of Reddam House, a leading group of schools in South Africa. Since then, Inspired has grown to over 50 co-educational, non-denominational independent schools across 5 continents: Europe, Australia, Latin America, Asia and Africa.

As well as ensuring academic excellence, Inspired also enriches student's lives through performing arts and sports programs designed to nurture and encourage the children of today to become the adults of tomorrow. The business aims to ensure all their students are as well-equipped as possible to deal with the competitive nature of the workforce they will enter and the challenges of the leadership positions many of them will hold.

Built around three core pillars - academic excellence, performing arts and sports, the senior team work together through their collective experience to ensure the group takes a fresh and contemporary approach to education, driving and supporting pioneering academic experiences for all of its students.

The organisation places its core values at the centre of the teaching approach. With a vision to create confident, tolerant and resilient young people it encourages and develops core skills of curiosity, confidence and security.

Job Description

As Group HR Director in the Inspired business, candidates will broadly -

• HRIS: ensure adoption of a new HR information system to ensure the completeness and integrity of all people data, enable automation of key local and global processes (payroll, approvals, hiring, absence management, performance and development management)
• Work as a sole contributor (with the support of Africa HR Director), engaged in the tactical execution of all HR policies and procedures in a fast paced / entrepreneurial environment
• Drives the HR related integration priorities of newly acquired schools
• Provides guidance and support to management and/or HR people based in schools around employment issues including restructuring (redundancy, TUPE, workers council etc.) and dispute resolution (grievances, disciplinary issues, under performance issues), and recommend effective solutions are delivered by the business, which are ethically and legally sound, liaising as necessary with local legal advisors to obtain any locally applicable legal advice
• Review and analyse the effectiveness of the newly introduced performance and development process
• Identify efficiency's and process improvement across the Group to add clear financial value
• Support and counsel the Chairman, Regional CEOs and wider Senior Leadership team on all aspects of employee relations, operating as a true business partner, with the skill to think creatively around a problem and the foresight to spot and flag potential issues before they occur
• Work with the regional businesses to design policy, process and practice and agree adaptations to Global and local approaches
• Be the custodian of talent acquisition, talent management, succession planning, reward and recognition with the aim of ensuring a meritocratic approach to reward and promotion
• Collaborating with ELT, School based HR and School Heads on the administration and communication of compensation programmes, job levels, bonus schemes and equity plans
• Drive Employee Engagement both locally and regionally at all levels to encourage individual creativity & encourage employee retention

The Successful Applicant

Interested candidates will have to share the vision and passion of Inspired and be committed to providing best in class education both for its fee paying students and those successful in gaining one of the means-tested scholarships. You should be able to demonstrate a clear people vision and be able to support and promote the business' onward growth agenda. This role is targeting those who are comfortable in a role which will see you both as a full generalist contributor of all operational and tactical HR best practice, as well as partnering the ELT/SLT to translate the commercial strategy into an appropriate group people function.

An ability to work at pace will be essential, as will the ability to ensure the people strategy is scalable and appropriate for the various International territories it will support. Ideally candidates will come from highly commercial, service and people centric environments, those which are geographically complex and highly entrepreneurial in nature. In summary - a well-rounded HR generalist who is happy establishing process and procedure as well as contributing to the longer term vision of the group. We are especially interested in those from hospitality / leisure and international education businesses.

With strong communication skills and an ability to influence stakeholders at all levels, both internally and externally, the candidate should also be a brand ambassador and be able to represent the business across all country locations. The individual will need to be results driven, capable of operating at a strategic level but be equally focused on hands on delivery and ownership of all aspects operational HR.

In addition candidates must:

• Have general knowledge of the principles and practices of International / European human resources management having worked in a multi-national organisation across different regions
• Work in a people centric sector - primarily private education, hospitality and leisure or white collar service based organisations
• Have an ability to make recommendations and provide solutions to problems or issues
• Be a perceptive, strong listener who is capable of relating to individuals at all levels and able to establish and clearly add value and contribute to the efficiency of the business
• Be numerate, articulate, confident and an excellent communicator
• Have an ability to work flexibly, calmly and efficiently whilst responding to multiple and ever changing business priorities
• Be self-motivated, proactive, results orientated and dynamic individual prepared to go the extra mile
• Have experience with process improvement and acquisitions / business integration

In addition candidate must have:

• Relevant bachelors/master's degree (CIPD fully qualified)
• 10+ years of relevant, progressive experience in roles of increasing seniority, with a number of years partnering the ELT
• Have experience with process improvement and acquisitions / business integration
• A willingness to travel internationally to support the business as needed. Travel will not be substantial.

What's on Offer

Salary up to £140,000 plus benefits

Ref Code: MPPT13998140Z
Closing Date: 31/03/2019