Human Resource Business Partner at Britam

Job Purpose:

• The HR Business Partner exists to translate business strategy into measurable people and performance outcomes for the assigned Business Unit, Segment or Function, acting as the single point of integration between HR and the business. Orchestrating the full HR ecosystem, including the Centres of Excellence and the HR Hub, the role builds the capability, culture and employee experience that Britam's people agenda requires, in direct support of the Group's ASCEND 2026 to 2030 strategy, particularly the Execution Excellence, Nurturing People and Partnerships, and Digitalization and Innovation pillars.
• In support of the Group’s Digitalization and Innovation agenda, the HRBP will play a key role in strengthening organizational digital and technology capabilities by translating digital transformation priorities into people strategies, anticipating future workforce and skills requirements, and enabling the adoption of technology and new ways of working across the organization.
• For the Technology cluster, the HRBP, while supporting the assigned Business Units, Segment or enabler Functions, also acts as the strategic people partner to the Chief Digital & Technology Officer (CDTO) in delivering the ASCEND digitalization, data and AI agenda, ensuring that the people architecture evolves at the same pace as the technology architecture.
• Working with HR Functional and Specialist areas, the HRBP co-crafts business- and employee-centred interventions, using data, design thinking and inclusive leadership to create a workplace in which both people and performance thrive.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy Translation and Workforce Shaping

• Co-create the Business Unit People Strategy, aligned to business ambition, risk profile and customer outcomes, refreshed annually with the Director, Human Resources.
• Shape organisation design (structures, spans, roles) with Talent and Capability, ensuring alignment to the Group job architecture and skills taxonomy.
• Lead Business Unit workforce planning (demand, supply, critical roles, skills, location strategy), factoring in automation and future skills needs.
• Anticipate the people and workforce implications of digitalization, automation and emerging technologies, translating business and technology priorities into workforce plans, organizational design and future skills requirements.
• For the Technology and Digital portfolio, maintain a rolling multi-year workforce plan and lead build, buy, borrow, partner and automate decisions for priority digital, data, AI and cyber capabilities, reduction of contractor dependency and productivity gains from AI and automation.
• Partner with the CDTO to evolve the Technology and Digital operating model, including structures, spans, decision rights and interfaces with the businesses, enabling agile, product and platform ways of working and working with the Innovation Hub and Digital Partnerships teams on talent models that support experimentation.

Performance & Productivity Partner

• Evolve performance management from appraisal to performance enablement, using outcome based OKRs, continuous feedback and leadership routines.
• Build leader capability in coaching, consequence management and underperformance turnaround.
• Use productivity analytics to identify friction, simplify processes and remove blockers, facilitating performance calibration linked to Business Unit results.
• Facilitates continuous performance management support to line management (coaching, counselling, career development, consequence management) to ensure the performance of teams
• Provides individualized coaching and mentorship to team leaders and targeted staff for enhanced engagement and productivity purposes 
• Tracking trends in business and employee performance and providing leaders with visibility as well as aligning the KPIs for all the partnerships regularly
• Working with the business/segment or function leadership influence the development of a high-performance culture through effective implementation of KPI focused review system with appropriate measures of success and consequence management
• Ensure that performance expectations are clear within the business unit, both for the BU in total and for individuals. 
• Ensure individual objectives are aligned and supportive to achieving the overall goals of the BU/segment or function.
• Ensure that line managers are equipped with the skills to coach their people to higher levels of performance and ongoing development of their skills.  This includes the management of underperformers and supporting the effective engagement of the said impacted staff.
• Responsible for the regular review of all the Tactical Plans for Team leaders for all partnerships to drive high performance and hold staff accountable to KPIs, - the ‘what’ and the ‘How’
• Participate in performance moderation to ensure that individual performance reflects the unit/Company performance. 
• Tracking trends in business and employee performance and providing leaders with visibility as well as aligning the OKRs for all the partnerships regularly
• Ensure that performance expectations are clear within the business unit, both for the BU in total and for individuals. 
• Responsible for the regular review of all the Tactical Plans for Team leaders for all partnerships to drive high performance and hold staff accountable to OKRs, the ‘what’ and the ‘How’
• Participate in performance moderation to ensure that individual performance reflects the unit/Company performance.

Talent Partner

• Take ownership for the talent agenda within the business unit/segment or function, ensuring that the talent needs both today and for the future are planned for and are in place. This will include clarity of emerging skill requirements within the BU/segment or function. This includes quarterly talent reviews, succession coverage for critical roles and diverse pipelines.
• Identify current and emerging digital and technology capability gaps and partner with Talent and Capability to develop targeted interventions for skills acquisition, reskilling, upskilling, internal mobility and succession.
• Together with the COEs, build proactive pipelines and a differentiated employee value proposition for scarce technology, data, AI, cyber, engineering and digital product talent, including partnerships with universities, professional communities and strategic partners.
• Maintain succession depth and retention plans for transformation-critical technology roles to reduce key-person dependency, partnering with Total Rewards on scarce-skills market intelligence, evidence-based retention interventions and specialist career pathways that do not require a move into people management.
• Activate internal mobility and development moves, shortening time to competence for new and transitioning talent.
• Partner with Talent and Capability on skills pathways, leadership development and assessment insight for hiring and promotion decisions.
• Challenge the leaders within the BU if the overall performance, potential, and succession plans are not adequate and develop clear action plans to address this in consultation with the Talent & Capability specialist function.
• To ensure that the BU’s projected optimal resourcing levels are adequately met. Support all optimal resourcing initiatives impacting the partnerships and BUs as part of the talent agenda
• Have clear visibility of all talent benches in partnerships and provide guidance on how talent gaps and opportunities can be addressed or harnessed. Responsible for talent reporting at the partnerships’ level
• In collaboration with specialist functions, actively contribute to the implementation of structural reviews and the resourcing in impacted areas of review.
• Support recruitment as part of resourcing partnership areas as necessary to ensure all resourcing requirements are met timeously for the BU/Segment or function, in consultation with the Talent & Capability function.
• Conduct quarterly talent reviews and contribute to capabilities building in all partnerships and BU with guidance by the Talent & Capability function

Employee Experience & Engagement Partner

• Together with employees and functional leads co-craft employee-centred solutions to the People agenda matters
• Co-design employee journeys with the ER, EX and Culture Centre of Excellence, running continuous listening and closing the loop on actions.
• Advance belonging, inclusion and psychological safety through leader practice and team rituals.
• Work closely with team leaders and employees to improve work relationships, build morale, and increase productivity and retention. 
• Ensure that all tools and techniques that help drive engagement are utilized e.g., good 2-way communication channels; action plans following employee engagements surveys are robust and meaningful; use of recognition and differentiated rewards.
• Facilitation of resolution of employee engagement issues and consultatively creating sustained solutions to individual and collective employee challenges
• Regular and planned engagement sessions with team leaders and divisional heads with key HR-driven actions and clear impact measurement mechanisms, tied to performance and productivity
• Responsible for the implementation of agreed Employee Experience and Culture Change initiatives in all the partnerships with measurable impact and outcomes in consultation with the ER, EX, and Culture specialist function
• Continuously provide guidance on policies and procedures in liaison with other HR functions and where necessary seek relevant application and interpretation advisory from the ER function.
• Manage and resolve employee relations issues in collaboration with ER, EX, and Culture function
• Proactively invest time to understand and resolve employee relations issues within the BU to identify and fully address the key underlying issues.
• Anticipate and resolve employee relations issues early with the ER, EX and Culture Centre of Excellence, addressing root causes and promoting fairness and trust.

Transformation/Culture Change Partner

• To play an integral role in business transformation/culture change programs within HR, BU, and the Company at large
• Prompt and advise the senior leaders on the effective management of change so that business performance is impacted positively by the change process and colleagues are treated fairly and are supportive of the change.
• Help staff to cope and appreciate change/transformation initiatives by regular visits and sessions with staff as well as collect key feedback to aid in decision making.
• Continuously benchmark against industry standards and offerings for structures, employee experience, culture programs, performance, new ways of working in collaboration with functional areas, leadership, and staff.
• Lead the HR components of Business Unit transformation initiatives, including the case for change, stakeholder mapping, change plans, training and adoption metrics.
• Support the people aspects of digital transformation and technology-enabled change, including workforce impact assessments, change readiness, stakeholder engagement, adoption of new technologies and ways of working, and measurement of people-related outcomes.
• Working with the COEs, to identify roles and tasks materially affected by AI and automation, lead the related reskilling, redeployment and augmentation plans, and track people risks and adoption outcomes for priority technology, data and AI programmes, so that success is measured by business outcomes and not technical implementation alone.
• Track benefits realisation and sustainment, embedding new ways of working.
• Responsible for HR-driven actions for transformation projects as assigned and evidence impact and value of their contribution at the partnerships level

Learning & Coaching Partner

• Be a coach and confidant to the BU leader and team leaders and appropriately challenge the status quo where needed.
• Accountable for ensuring that technical and functional skill development needs are properly and adequately met across the business unit or for the function. 
• Liaise with the Learning & Development function to identify and address learning needs across the BUs and partnerships, facilitating and following through on business-led interventions to build the capabilities required to deliver business strategy, including emerging technical and digital skills aligned with evolving business and technology needs.
• Partner with the Britam Institute and Talent and Capability to establish a Technology and Digital skills baseline and targeted learning pathways in AI, data, cyber, cloud, digital product, agile and technology leadership.

Data, Insights and Governance

• Use people analytics dashboards (talent, experience, performance, risk) to inform decisions and interventions.
• Ensure data quality, privacy and ethical use, aligning metrics to the Group human capital metric dictionary once confirmed.
• Prepare insight rich updates for Business Unit leadership and Board or ExCo submissions when required.
• Maintain an integrated Technology and Digital people dashboard (workforce mix, cost, skills, vacancies, attrition, succession and contractor dependency) and manage material people risks such as critical skills shortages, key-person dependency, capability obsolescence and attrition hotspots.

Ways of Working with Centres of Excellence and the HR Hub

• Centres of Excellence (Talent and Capability, Total Rewards, ER, EX and Culture): co-design solutions, provide Business Unit insight and adopt products at speed.
• HR Hub: channel service requests to shared services, monitor service and experience level agreements, and escalate systemic issues for joint resolution.
• Ensure usage of ALL the appropriate HRBP tools, including engagement plans & cadence, action trackers, templates, call reports, and evidence the contribution in each area of partnership as part of performance appraisal without fail. 

Knowledge, experience and qualifications required

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field 
• Master’s degree in Human Resource Management or a related field is an added advantage
• A professional qualification in Human Resources Management from a recognized institution; CHRP-K is required
• 5 – 7 years of working experience as an HR practitioner, either as an HR generalist or HR functional expert. Broad HR exposure is desirable.
• Good knowledge of best practices in HR, labour laws, and employment practices
• Registered member of the Institute of Human Resource Management (IHRM) 
• Good coaching capability and influencing skills
• Excellent Communication Skills
• Technology cluster: demonstrated experience partnering with Technology, Digital, Data or Innovation leadership, with a practical understanding of technology talent markets and scarce-skills dynamics.
• Experience in supporting digital transformation or technology-driven business initiatives is an added advantage.
• Execution Excellence - Focus on achieving results