HR Senior Performance Manager 18m FTC

Join CMS as an HR Senior Performance Manager (18m FTC) for an exciting opportunity to lead and manage our refreshed firmwide performance process.

About us

CMS is a Future Facing firm with more than 80 offices in over 45 countries and 5,800+ lawyers worldwide. We combine deep local market understanding with a global perspective. We are passionate about building strong relationships with our clients, our people, and the communities we work in.

We take a bold, dynamic, and agile approach to ensure our clients are able to face the future with confidence. We are driven by emerging technologies such as generative AI and readily embrace the possibilities it opens up for developing new and better ways of working. Our aim is to inspire, impact and support our clients and our people, helping them to maximize their potential and thrive.

About the role

HR Business Strategy is a recently established team within the HR function at CMS. Working closely with HR Business Partnering and Centre of Excellence colleagues, we own and develop the people strategy for the firm as well as ensuring HR work is joined up and aligned to the business. This is an exciting time to join a new team and support the delivery of a key programme of work for the firm.

In this role you\’ll have the opportunity to oversee the overall design and delivery of a refreshed firmwide performance management process; across all business areas and jurisdictions. Following business led design principles and ensuring our new approach aligns with the firm’s people strategy and values and incorporates external market insights and industry best practice thinking.

In this role, you can expect to get involved in a variety of work including:

1. Working closely with the HRBP team and senior leaders to build an understanding of business requirements for our new approach to performance to develop and embed a high performance culture.
2. Collaborating with Learning & Development (L&D): Working with the L&D team for example focusing on goal setting.
3. Testing Ratings: In partnership with the HRBP team, testing a new approach to ratings at the mid year taking forward learnings into our new performance approach.
4. Feedback Development: Initially driving the development of a consistent approach to providing feedback across the firm at the end of matters to ensure continuous improvement. Developing a feedback approach that builds each year to create and embed a culture of feedback across the firm.
5. Workday Design: Working in Partnership with Workday Performance process role on the design, testing and delivery of a Workday performance process.
6. Stakeholder Engagement: Engaging with business stakeholders to ensure they are aware of and understand the changes being implemented.
7. Testing and Socialising Design: Testing and socialising key elements of the design with a wide range of stakeholders.
8. Embedding DEIB and Wellbeing to ensure these fundamental elements of the People & Communities strategic pillar are fully integrated into the new performance approach.
9. Liaison with OM Design: to develop each stage, addressing questions, and conducting testing.
10. Communications and Collateral: Develop and manage communications and collateral to support performance management processes.
11. Deliverables Management: Manage the plan for delivering these responsibilities including milestone planning and measurements of success.

About you

We will invest in your ongoing training and development to support your professional goals and help you to thrive in your role from day one. Our opportunities are open to all suitably qualified applicants, so to be considered for this role, you must meet the following skills and experience:

1. Business consulting skills combined with strong execution.
2. Previous experience of design and implementation of a performance strategy in a complex organisation.
3. Strong relationship development skills; able to build credibility and influence at senior leadership level across a diverse, global organisation.
4. Business focused, generalist HR experience.
5. Able to demonstrate working successfully with key stakeholders including CoEs to create joint expectations and deliverables aligned to business strategy and focused on employee experience.
6. Honed collaboration skills, understanding how to operate in a complex, matrix organisation.
7. External/market awareness, understanding broader industry performance trends.
8. Excellent written and oral communication skills with strong presentation skills.
9. Able to build relationships at all levels based on trust, respect and delivery.
10. Collaborative and proactive approach; delivery focused.

What’s in it for you?

We want to reward you today and help you plan for tomorrow. We appreciate that everyone is different, therefore we have designed a benefits system that offers choice and flexibility based on individual needs and lifestyles. To name a few, these include:

1. Competitive basic salary (reviewed annually)
2. Flexible, hybrid working policy
3. Generous bonus scheme
4. Up to 25 days holiday (rising to 28 days with service)
5. Holiday exchange scheme
6. Private medical insurance
7. Enhanced parental leave
8. Reasonable adjustments and accommodation for disabled talent in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.

If you would like to read more information regarding our range of benefits, please visit our Rewards & Benefits page on our website.

Equal opportunities

At CMS, we place diversity and inclusion at the centre of our culture and the heart of our organisation. As a firm we recognise, celebrate, and embrace the diverse talent our society has to offer because we know that to solve big problems, we need the best and brightest minds available to us. In support of this goal, we commit to actively breaking down barriers which stand in the way of those from diverse backgrounds and play our part in levelling the playing field.

As a Future Facing Firm, we strongly believe that a career in law should be open to people from all walks of life, because not only does diversity of thought and experience make our firm a stronger and more sustainable business, but it also makes it a more rewarding place to work.

When recruiting, we prioritise attracting talented people and we actively promote a flexible working environment which enables all our team members to thrive. If you see a role you are interested in, but don’t feel you meet 100% of the criteria we encourage you to still consider making an application. We also welcome applications from those who may be looking to return to the workforce after a career break.

We are proud to say our leadership in creating an inclusive working culture has been celebrated and recognised externally, including being listed for a number of years in the Times Top 50 Employers for Women and the Social Mobility Index.

We are a Level 2 Disability Confident Employer, and we actively encourage applications from people with disabilities, whether visible or invisible. We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity throughout our recruitment process and in every element of the employee life cycle. If you require assistance, or if you would like to discuss any accessibility requirements or adjustments as part of the recruitment process, please contact Becky Lowe at who will be happy to support you.

Ready to apply? Here are the next steps.

We look forward to receiving your application online via the CMS careers site . Please contact our Talent Acquisition team if you have any questions.

Please note that we have a preferred agency panel in place. Only applications submitted via the portal at the point of instruction will be accepted.

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