Forward Deployed Operator - People & Talent in London

Onodrim is building Europe's largest defence and industrial platform. We acquire specialist manufacturers in critical defence and dual-use supply chains, then invest behind their growth with capital, technology and operating know-how. Forward Deployed Operators are Onodrim's people on the ground. You'll embed inside the companies we acquire – plants, lines and the offices that run them – and own one part of making them grow. For this role, that part is the people.

The manufacturers we buy are often decades old, family- or founder-run, with a workforce that holds the real know-how and is getting older, pay structures that have grown by accretion, and HR practices that live in a spreadsheet and one person's head. The Forward Deployed Operator for People & Talent walks in after an acquisition and builds the full picture: who the key people are and how to keep them, what everyone is paid and whether it makes sense, what the collective agreements and union relationships require, where the next retirements will leave a gap, and what it will take to hire the people growth needs. Then you fix what matters, with the company's own management, and stay until it sticks.

This is not a policy-writing job. One week you'll be sitting with a works council; the next, modelling a retention scheme for twelve critical operators; the next, interviewing for a production manager the plant has needed for two years. It is what a Head of People does for a company, done repeatedly across our portfolio.

What you'll do

• Map the organisation. In the first weeks on site, build the real org chart – who decides, who knows, who the workforce follows – and identify the people the business cannot afford to lose.
• Retain key talent. Design and negotiate retention and incentive arrangements for critical people – operators, engineers, managers – that are affordable, simple and tied to what the plant must deliver.
• Review all compensation. Analyse every salary, wage grade, bonus and benefit against the collective agreement, the local market and internal fairness; find the anomalies and propose a structure that holds up.
• Work with unions and works councils. Understand the collective agreements and co-determination rights in place, build a working relationship with employee representatives, and take changes through the right process.
• Plan for the ageing workforce. Model retirements, succession and know-how transfer by role and line; put apprenticeship, training and knowledge-capture programmes in place before the gap opens.
• Set the hiring strategy. Define the roles growth requires, build the pipeline – local labour market, apprentices, returners, relocation – and run or support the hiring of key positions.
• Review policies and benefits. Audit contracts, working-time arrangements, policies and benefits for legal exposure, cost and fit; standardise where it helps and leave alone where it doesn't.
• Lead the people side of integration. Own the people workstream from signing through the first year: communication, harmonisation decisions, leadership changes, and the handling of anyone who leaves.
• Support people diligence. Before we buy, assess the target's workforce – key-person risk, cost, liabilities, union position, culture – and feed it into the deal.
• Build local capability. Leave each company with a working people function – routines, data, tools and a capable owner – and bring what you learn back to Onodrim's people playbook.

What you'll bring

• A degree in business, economics, law, psychology, engineering or a closely related discipline.
• 5+ years in HR, people operations or human-capital consulting, with at least 2 years as a generalist or HR business partner inside a manufacturing or industrial company – you have worked with shift patterns, wage grades and a works council, not only with knowledge workers.
• Hands-on experience with compensation: structuring pay grades, benchmarking against the market, designing bonus and retention schemes, and modelling what they cost.
• Working knowledge of employment law and collective bargaining in at least one European jurisdiction, and the judgement to know when local counsel is needed in another.
• Experience hiring for industrial and technical roles – operators, technicians, engineers, plant management – in tight labour markets.
• Strong analytical skills: comfortable building the workforce picture from payroll exports, contracts and HRIS data in Excel or similar, and presenting it to a managing director in numbers.
• Credibility across the whole organisation – you can hold a difficult conversation with a union representative in the morning and with the owner-manager in the afternoon.
• Clear, direct communication in English, written and spoken.
• Willingness to travel extensively and spend extended periods on site at portfolio companies across Europe.
• Right to work in the UK, Switzerland or the EU.

Nice to have

• We operate our business in English; knowledge of a European language other than English is beneficial.
• Experience with post-merger integration on the people side – harmonising terms, retention programmes, leadership changes – in a PE-backed or acquisitive company.
• Experience with employee equity or long-term incentive plans and the tax and legal questions they raise across European jurisdictions.
• Exposure to defence or other regulated industries where security clearances, nationality rules and export control shape who can be hired for what.
• Familiarity with apprenticeship systems and vocational training in one or more European countries.
• Experience selecting and implementing HRIS, payroll or workforce-planning tools in a company that had none.
• A CIPD, SHRM or equivalent qualification, or formal training in employment law or compensation.
• Time in a start-up or small team where you did whatever the company needed.
• Clearance in at least one of our operating countries.