Head of People,Culture and Human Resource Management

Background/IRC Summary: The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war and disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

IRC has been working in Pakistan for approximately 40 years, leading and delivering large, complex programs to meet the needs in health, education, safeguarding, environmental health, and livelihoods for displaced, poor, and disaster-affected communities. With the support of the federal and provincial governments, and generous donors like FCDO, ECHO, USAID, GAC, and Australian Aid Agencies the IRC is currently implementing projects across the country.

Job Overview/Summary:

The Head of People & Culture is responsible to provide leadership and direction to promote a positive work environment founded on core values and ethics and in accordance with IRC’s organizational objectives, principles, and best practices within local environments as well as a global perspective. The Head of People & Culture is primarily responsible to design, develop and implement HR strategies that will attract, engage, and develop employees and build upon a high-performance culture. He/she is responsible for maintaining a team environment and culture, ensuring work planning and staff life cycle processes support wellness, growth, and satisfaction, staff retention and are compliant within applicable labor practices and to organizational policies. He/she is expected to proactively collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to maintain consistent and complimentary policies and procedures. This includes taking the lead to ensure that we keep building an inclusive strength-focused culture where diversity is encouraged and valued.

Major Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership

▪ Contribute to the strategic leadership for inclusive & diverse workforce planning & management The IRC in Pakistan as part of the Senior management team

▪ Support SMT (by leadership, strategic and operational) to create organizational culture as per IRC Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion standards and IRC code of conduct (IRC Way)

▪ Develop and implement mitigation plans to retain the right and motivated people with the skills to consolidate, solidify and celebrate

Human Resource Management

• Deliver a planned HR approach to attract, develop and retain the right talent with the right skills to achieve high-quality programmatic outcomes in line with Strategic Action Plans & GEDI framework.

• Determine workforce needs, identify human resources and competency gaps, and devise a development and workforce plan to facilitate nationalization of roles and staff retention.

• Actively participate in the proposal design and grants opening and review meetings, advise on organizational structure, position scoping, and other inputs critical to ensuring a strong HR foundation to support program quality.

• Actively implement and champion the IRC International's diversity (GEDI) policy in the recruitment and employment of staff

• Contribute to emergency responses within the overall regional emergency response plan

• Ensure that HR ERP systems (HRIS, LMS, Integra) are up-to-date and functioning

• Ensure comprehensive and inclusive onboarding of new staff and mid-term check-ins/refreshers for existing staff on organizational policies and compliances

Learning and Development

▪ Formulate and implement Consultative Integrated L&D Plan for each year addressing Program and Operations Teams L&D needs with options/solutions (within IRC and external environment); that includes employee engagement initiatives and gender engagement initiatives

▪ Actively practices and support mentoring, succession planning and management development within the scope of responsibility.

▪ Working with senior managers, to ensure that appropriate learning and development interventions are available and implemented, which develop the contribution of staff to the objectives of the country program.

▪ Ensure that the IRC staff have the required skills and abilities to provide capacity building and knowledge transfer to partner organizations

▪ Support and share key learning through different methods and help to create an environment for innovation

Rewards and Systems

▪ Participate in budget preparation and provide strategic compensation analysis to drive nationalization and ability to attract high-quality talent, define and review salary structure, coordinate annual compensation review process and compensation adjustments, consult with HQ compensation team to align with best practices.

▪ Manage national benefit plans, communicate updates, and conduct information campaigns for national and international staff.

▪ Oversee payroll and ensure collaboration with the Finance team on all payroll matters

▪ Provide support and advice on performance development plans and career advice

Performance Management

• Lead the performance management process with guidance from regional and HQ, create plan to manage annual and mid-year Performance check-Ins, conduct trainings on goal-setting, utilize budgets to organize development activities and work one-on-one with managers and employees to create country wide development plans, support a culture of continuous feedback through HR initiatives and actions.

• Support line managers to fulfil their obligation in the performance management covering (GEDI perspective) in the whole country.

Employee Relations Global Initiatives & Compliance:

• Ensure IRC global initiatives/campaigns related to staff and systems (IRC Way, Safeguarding, Duty of Care etc.) are facilitated and implemented

• Address complaints, ensure compliant register, forward complaint to Ethics and Compliance Unit (ECU) as necessary, arrange/do the investigation and do other associated actions to settle the issue within short possible time with proper feedback to the reporter

• Provide audit feedback and take necessary corrective measures for future improvement to avoid such feedback in future

• Keep HR manual up-to-date, incorporate new policies and procedures as per the organization’s needs and keep the process smooth for staff operations

• Ensure adherence to Ops Scorecards, target achievement, on time reporting to SMT, Region and HQ whichever is necessary

• Advocate IRC values, in different forum, including internal and external and focus on how to improve ownership among the staff about IRC, listen to them, provide necessary guidance and support with regards to this

People and Culture

• Contribute to the organization’s overall People and Culture strategy and vision

• Work closely with leaders throughout the organization, to identify and assess areas for capability development and implement and manage plans to address gaps

• Continuously monitor the effectiveness of all HR Policies, advice and support in all areas of People and Culture which includes learning and development, remuneration, recruitment, employment

• Exhibit understanding, sensitivity and responsiveness to cultural differences present in the employees and embed best practices on diversity, equality, and inclusion across the organization

Staff Wellbeing

▪ Promote and monitor staff care and well-being, support healthy work-life balance practices.

▪ Communicate and encourage active practice of the principles of the “IRC Way – Global Standards for Professional Conduct” throughout the country program.

▪ Maintain healthy and empowering office environment that encourage open, honest and productive communication among IRC staff by delivering employee engagement and communication action plans.

▪ Provide Health and Safety advice and proactively support risk assessments and risk management, including issues around staff health and welfare

Partner Capacity Building

▪ Support partnership team in partner assessment and vetting process

▪ Support in identifying gaps in partners’ HR systems/practices and perform capacity building of their staff and advise on system changes where needed

Key Working Relationships: Senior Management Team, Provincial Heads, Team leads

Position Reports to: Country Director

Position directly supervises: Sr. HR Manager, Manager HR (C&B), and/or HR Sr. Officer/Officer.

Job Requirements:

a) Education:

• Master’s degree in human resources or MBA with specialization in human resources or Business Administration. SHRM CP or equivalent is preferred

b) Work Experience:

• At least 10 year experiences in Human Resource/People & Culture management with INGO/NNGOs or UN/donor agencies • Sensitivity to cultural differences and understanding of the political and ethical issues surrounding Human Resource/People & Culture management on a local/global level • Experience with Gender, Equality, Diversity, & Inclusion strategies and efforts.

c) Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

• Excellent management, interpersonal and negotiation skills and a demonstrated ability to promote harmonious/cohesive teamwork, in a cross-cultural context

• Demonstrable ability to plan long-term, organize priorities and work under administrative and programmatic pressures with detail orientation and professional grace.

• Proven sense of professional discretion, integrity, and ability to manage complex HR situations diplomatically and to effective resolution

• Top-tier written and verbal communication skills

• Ability to demonstrate a supportive and consultative people centric approach with direct reports and staff at senior and junior levels with

• Strong skills in recruitment and compensation & benefits management.

• Very strong proficiency in MS Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint is required

• Previous experience of ERP, HRIS, payroll and reports

• Ability to plan, multi-task and manage time effectively

Language Skills: Fluent, professional level speaking, reading, and writing in English and Urdu (knowledge of regional languages i.e. Sindhi, Pashto or Brahvi will be an asset).

Working Environment: Works well in and promotes teamwork, flexible and able to handle pressure well.

The IRC Core Values and Commitments.

• The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Equality and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and implements policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity Anti-Retaliation and Combating Trafficking in Persons.

• IRC is committed to ensuring that IRC staff is suitable to work with children and have the knowledge they need

• to uphold and abide by the IRC’s Child Safeguarding Policy.

• Level of interaction with children: Little or no contact

• IRC ensures that its staff must actively practice the roles and responsibilities related to client responsiveness, accountability to people in affected communities and must have proficiencies to solicits and listens to feedback and other’s perspectives, responds to feedback with maturity and sensitivity and takes appropriate decisions and makes changes to behavior or actions in response to feedback.

• IRC recognizes that gender equality is fundamental to the achievement of our organizational mission. As such, IRC is committed to the promotion of gender equality in all aspects of our operations and programs. Our organizational policies, procedures and actions demonstrate this dedication.

Women candidates, ethnic minorities and differently abled persons are highly encouraged to apply.