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.

Key Responsibilities

People Leadership & HR Capability

• 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.

HR Function & Business Leadership

• 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.

Employee Relations Leadership

• 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.

Organization, Talent & Change

• 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.

Senior Stakeholder Leadership

• 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.