HR Director, UK & Ireland

The HR Director, UK & Ireland is the senior HR leader for a complex market of more than 6,000 employees, responsible for leading and developing an HR organization of approximately 25 professionals and ensuring high-quality, commercially relevant HR support across the business.

At the heart of the role is the leadership, engagement and development of the UK&I HR team. The successful candidate will create a strong sense of direction and purpose, build a highly engaged and collaborative team, develop HR talent and capabilities, and foster a culture of accountability, trust and high performance.

Operating in a large and highly matrixed environment, the role will translate business and HR priorities into a clear UK&I people agenda, mobilize the HR organization around shared priorities and ensure strong execution across organizational effectiveness, talent, Employee Relations, transformation and significant business change.

Strong Employee Relations leadership is an important part of the role, both in providing judgement and oversight on complex matters and in continuing to strengthen a consistent, proactive and scalable UK&I ER model.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, engage, coach and develop the UK&I HR team, creating a strong sense of purpose, direction and collective accountability.
• Build a highly engaged, collaborative and high-performing HR organization where people feel empowered to take ownership and deliver at their best.
• Set clear expectations and raise standards of leadership, business acumen, execution and impact across the HR team.
• Build strong succession and talent pipelines, actively developing future HR leaders and creating meaningful career and development opportunities.
• Foster an environment of trust, openness and constructive challenge, encouraging collaboration and knowledge sharing across the team and broader HR organization.
• Make effective and timely talent decisions, addressing capability and performance issues where required.
• Translate business and HR priorities into a clear UK&I HR agenda and mobilize the HR organization around the priorities with the greatest business impact.
• Ensure consistent, high-quality and commercially relevant HR support across a diverse and complex organization.
• Anticipate emerging organizational and people challenges and ensure HR capabilities and resources evolve accordingly.
• Drive simplification, operational effectiveness and continuous improvement across HR processes and ways of working.
• Create alignment across HR Business Partners, Centers of Excellence and global HR teams to deliver an integrated and effective people agenda.
• Use business and people insights to inform priorities, decisions and resource allocation.
• Provide senior leadership and sound judgement on complex and high-risk Employee Relations matters across UK&I.
• Own and further develop the UK&I ER model, strengthening governance, capabilities and ways of working to support the scale and complexity of the organization.
• Lead and advise on significant restructurings, consultations, workforce changes and other sensitive employee matters.
• Develop a more proactive and preventative approach to ER, using trends and insights to strengthen HR and manager capability and address systemic issues.
• Lead and support significant organizational change, restructuring, workforce transformation and integration activities across UK&I.
• Partner with leaders on organizational design, workforce planning, succession and leadership effectiveness.
• Ensure complex programs are structured effectively, with clear ownership, appropriate resources and active management of risks and interdependencies.
• Support M&A and integration activity, ensuring effective delivery of people-related priorities.
• Build trusted relationships with senior business and HR leaders, acting as a credible adviser and constructive challenger.
• Coach senior stakeholders through complex organizational, leadership and people issues.
• Navigate differing stakeholder perspectives and create alignment around practical solutions and a clear path forward.
• Exercise sound judgement in balancing local business requirements with global priorities and operating models.
• Communicate complex issues with clarity, providing context, insight and evidence-based recommendations.

Experience & Capabilities

• Significant HR leadership experience in a large, complex and highly matrixed organization.
• Proven track record of building, engaging and developing sizeable, high-performing HR teams.
• Demonstrated ability to set direction, create accountability, develop talent and mobilize teams through complexity and change.
• Strong business acumen and the ability to translate business priorities into pragmatic HR strategies and actions.
• Strong Employee Relations leadership experience, including complex cases, restructurings, consultations, workforce change and high-risk employee matters.
• Experience strengthening ER operating models, governance and capability, alongside hands-on credibility in complex ER situations.
• Strong organizational effectiveness, organizational design, transformation and change experience.
• Excellent senior stakeholder management, influencing, coaching and conflict resolution skills.
• Sound judgement and confidence in making difficult people and organizational decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to use data and insight to inform decisions and improve organizational outcomes.
• Experience operating across local and global structures; M&A and/or significant integration experience would be valuable.