People and Culture Business Partner People & Culture · Cape Town · in London

Collinson is undergoing a significant transformation into a digital organisation; we are creating a travel platform supporting an airport experience ecosystem including dining, spa and retail, with an ambitious roadmap to a wide range of airport experiences. Collinson also supports the traveller across all capability areas providing insurance and assistance solutions globally as well as working with many of the world’s best known and largest airlines and hotel chains managing frequent flyer and guest programmes and enhancing ways to earn and redeem loyalty currency.

Partnerships developed within the airport environment and retail channels provide added value and an enriched customer experience to the members of these programmes and the millions of end customers we support. Collinson is a global leader in shaping and influencing customer behaviour to drive revenue and value for its clients and partners. We provide unrivalled insight and expertise around affluent consumers and frequent travellers, creating and delivering products and services that increase customer engagement, loyalty and value.

Collinson has brought innovation to the market for over 25 years, from launching Priority Pass, the first independent global VIP lounge access programme, to being the first to sell direct travel insurance in the UK through Columbus Direct. Today, we continue to invest heavily in innovation to ensure that we deliver superior customer experiences. We service over 800 clients in 170 countries, employ 2,000 staff in 28 global locations, and manage over 20 million end customers. Our industry and sector specialists provide market-leading experience across four core capabilities: Loyalty, Insurance and Assistance, and Lifestyle Benefits. Lifestyle Benefits is the world-leading provider of lifestyle membership programmes and travel enhancement products.

With a tiered product range tailored to the needs of financial and other service providers, we help clients to differentiate their products, optimise brand offerings and retain valuable customers globally. Priority Pass is used by the world’s largest financial services organisations and telecoms providers to add value to their propositions. Businesses also use it to augment employee benefit packages and enhance their corporate travel programmes.

Purpose of the role

In this role you will play a key part in creating a balanced approach to the strategic and operational people and culture goals of the business while maintaining those aspects of the culture which we seek to preserve. Your role as a Business Partner and a partner to the managers and senior managers will ensure excellent people and culture practices are operating throughout the divisions you work with and will play an active role in developing leadership and management capabilities. You will work collaboratively across the P&C team to promote a cohesive team environment and partner with the regions and the specialist P&C functions.

Main Accountabilities

• Be a trusted consultant to the business, to develop and implement the People and Culture business strategy in line with Collinson strategy and the operational goals of the allocated business units.
• Be an advocate and support the ‘One Collinson’ concept to help develop a group identity and sense of belonging for our colleagues.
• Provide advice and support to managers and staff on a wide range of people and culture issues including best practice, employment legislation and ensure people related legal and compliance issues are managed effectively and aligned with the overall P & C strategy.
• Support ongoing change management activity within your divisions and take ownership in relevant consultations where necessary.
• Create and facilitate delivery of the strategic people plans and aid managers to deliver on their business objectives by ensuring the optimum plans are in place and being worked through.
• Support leaders on workforce planning and organisation design, restructuring, mergers and acquisition activity.
• Act as the guardian for supporting the timely delivery of key business processes including succession planning, colleague engagement survey and career development, talent management and the development of senior level business objectives.
• Deliver assigned projects with quality to timeline with good communication and collaboration across the relevant audience/sponsors and stakeholders.
• Identify processes for improvement within the People and Culture function and assist with solutions to further enhance the P&C reputation across the Group.
• Facilitation of Performance and Calibration process which drives a high-performance culture.
• Creation of Insight/Analytics and recommendations into People and Culture and the strategic workforce plans and actions.
• Support D&I agenda working with the D&I Lead to create targets, plans and priorities to improve D&I across the function.
• Handle mediations and employee disputes.
• Collaborate with Global BPs and senior stakeholders across all business divisions to ensure compliance and alignment.
• Chair disciplinary hearings.
• CCMA representation including objection of con-arbs and legal representation.
• Manage any disputes pertaining to the employment relationship.
• Support senior leaders with labour related matters.
• Ensure adherence to labour legislation of BCEA, Employment Equity, LRA, Skills Development Levies Act, and POPI Act.
• Work closely with the P&C Operations Coordinators.

Requirements of the role

It is essential that the role is performed in a manner that enhances the desired culture of the organisation and is in line with the organisational values. Emphasis is on collaboration and integrity. Strong commercial awareness. Ability to build and maintain relationships at all levels and influence senior stakeholders. Ability to lead by example in challenging situations and think objectively and strategically to build organisational effectiveness. Essential to have proven experience and working knowledge of BCEA, desirable to have experience of another specialist area.

Skills and Capabilities

• Hold a full generalist remit including employee relations, succession, restructuring, as well as other people and culture projects.
• Experience or exposure, facilitating performance and talent calibration processes.
• Comfortable presenting to groups and facilitating workshops.
• Able to present recommendations in a clear compelling format appropriate to the situation.
• Able to balance the commercials of the business whilst upholding Collinson values.
• Able to work in ambiguous or changing situations and prioritise own work.
• Experience of being able to implement projects whilst maintaining BAU to high standard.

Equal Opportunity employer information:

Collinson is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes differences in all their forms including: colour, race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, neurodivergence, family status, age, individuals with disabilities and people from all backgrounds, cultures and experiences as we strongly believe this contributes to our ongoing success. We are focused on continually evolving our purpose driven, high performing culture, providing an environment where our people have the opportunity to achieve their full potential and do interesting and meaningful work. Our company values are: Take Action, Do the right thing, One team and Be insight led. These help guide everything we do internally in terms of how we think, act and interact, right through to how we deliver value to our customers and clients.

In your application, please feel free to note which pronouns you use (For example - she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs, etc).