Head of HR - Africa at Childrens Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF)

This role reports to the Executive Director, People & Culture and will work alongside the small team of HR business partner colleagues across CIFF. Support to this role is provided by an HR Assistant, HR Business Partnering, who has a dotted line into this role.

Role’s responsibilities

HR Leadership:

• Play an active role, as a senior member of the HR team, in shaping CIFF’s People Strategy
• Be accountable for adapting as needed and driving the execution of the People Strategy for Africa and for the global function this role also supports.
• Play a key role in positioning the HR team as true strategic partners to the business, aligning closely to the business sectors, and proactively working to understand their needs, anticipating the people implications and proactively planning and being one step ahead of providing the required support.
• Work closely with the ED People and Culture in building a Centre of Excellence for HR Business Partnering at CIFF, keeping abreast of best practice developments in the HR field and how they can be applied to the work the team does to enhance the value add delivered both internally and externally.
• Work collaboratively with other internal teams to develop and implement relevant risk management protocols, plans and frameworks, keeping CIFF staff at the centre.
• Inspire and mentor HR colleagues both to deliver exceptional performance for CIFF, and to maximise their personal potential.
• Act as a true ambassador for the People agenda within CIFF, behaving in a way which exemplifies CIFF’s Leadership Behaviours and Code of Respect.

HR Business Partnering

• As a senior member of the team, provide up-to-date, professional advice to the EDs (Africa and one other global function), and Directors in the teams, to support the development of people strategies, policies, and initiatives in line with the overall CIFF People Strategy.
• Lead on talent management for their functions, proactively driving discussions around gaps in capability and ways to upskill teams.
• Work with the Africa leadership team and other dedicated sector leads to ensure that the people strategy is implemented and adapted based on business requirements.
• Lead on planning for business continuity by working closely with the leadership on second line readiness for key roles. 
• Build expertise and execution around people management practice across the business.
• Manage all HR activity on behalf of the relevant business area including pay and performance review, reporting & analysis.
• Maintain a strong knowledge of employment law supporting in informing policy and/or process updates.
• Pro-actively use data, metrics, and evidence (including insights from internal surveys - Office Vibe and Your Say) to inform and drive decision making and change across their business areas.
• Work with the Director, People, Climate, CEO Office and Employee Engagement to drive initiatives to promote a positive and supportive work environment and build a culture of trust and psychological safety;
• Coach and provide feedback to key stakeholders to help improve business efficiency.
• Be jointly responsible with all team members under the leadership of the ED, People and Culture for a strong financial and commercial lens across all HR activities and supplier management.
• Ensure the Africa office is fully compliant on all HR aspects, working closely with the ED, Africa leadership and the Africa legal counsel on pre-empting risk areas, pro-active scenario planning and taking proactive measures to mitigate current and future risks.
• Closely collaborate with the Director, People, SRHR, People Operations and Global Reward on recurring compliance actions.  
• Work with external parties where appropriate to ensure compliance is mitigated.

 Employee Relations

• Ensure that people management issues of change and growth are managed and develop workforce plans to ensure the right organizational design.
• Deliver practical day to day HR policy and practice and advice that fits the business and is not ‘over engineered’.
• Lead on all employee relations activity in their client groups, supporting and advising investigation and hearing leads on appropriate processes for disciplinary, grievance, or change management processes.
• Work collaboratively with the Director, People, SRHR, People Operations and Global Reward and their team to ensure an effective and efficient HR service across CIFF.

Recruitment & Selection

• Lead on all recruitment and selection in their sector teams – either directly at M2 (Senior Manager) grade and above, or overseeing recruitment below this grade -  ensuring that the approach to recruitment and selection supports the People Strategy’s priorities and CIFF’s purpose, and CIFF’s employer brand is built and maximised.
• Ensure that a best practice end to end process, using the enhanced and rigorous recruitment process and tools is followed, keeping headhunter involvement and spend to a minimum.
• Support hiring managers in designing job descriptions, hiring timelines and advertising outlets.
• Lead, participate in and manage panel interviews, leading final selection decisions and making offers to candidates.

Reward

• Support the Director, People, SRHR, People Operations and Global Reward and play an active role in the annual pay review cycle, contributing to development of the pay review proposals and supporting processes and be fully accountable for the pay review cycle in their sectors.
• Support people managers in their client sectors through all reward processes acting as confidential advisors and experts to ensure CIFF’s approach to reward is applied consistently and fairly across the foundation.
• Retain a strong awareness of pay across sector teams identifying changes, particularly in providing insights local to Africa.
• Identify areas of employment law change or requirements to inform reward policy and / or process updates.

Learning and Development

• Support the Global Head of L&D to develop and embed a first-class L&D strategy.
• Work collaboratively with the Learning & Development team in creating a coaching culture through the roll out of coaching skills across the foundation and working with the Executive Team and Directors to ensure they are embedded and sustained.

Global Projects

• Take the lead on key new HR initiatives and projects as required.
• Provide cover and support for the absences for other HR Business Partners.

Requirements

Skills & Experience 

• Extensive and demonstrable experience of business partnering acting as a key strategic partner in all areas of HR and implementing organizational business strategies from a people perspective.
• Experience of managing complex stakeholders and operating as a trusted advisor across all organizational levels
• Confidential and discreet with experience operating in roles that have confidentiality at their core.
• A proven track record of coaching and developing teams.
• Excellent knowledge and competency in all the fundamentals of HR – Reward, Recruitment & Selection, L&D, Employee Relations – preferably with a strong grounding in the private sector
• International or NGO experience is desirable.
• Excellent up to date knowledge of employment law and best practice.
• Experience of using HR Information Systems.
• Outstanding communication skills, oral & written, influencing and negotiation skills
• Strong interpersonal skills with an excellent team work ethic.
• Highest levels of judgment and professional integrity.
• Knowledge and considerable use of psychometric testing activity and feedback.