Director/Senior Director, People Team

Director/Senior Director, People Team

Location: Remote US

Job Summary

The Director/Senior Director, People Team is responsible for leading the delivery of People strategy across the US, ensuring operational excellence, compliance, and a consistent employee experience.

Operating with a high degree of autonomy, this role serves as the primary People Team lead for the US market, partnering closely with business leaders to support organizational effectiveness, workforce planning, employee relations, talent development, and business growth.

At OPEN Health, our Human Resources function is known as the People Team.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Employee Relations & Policy Implementation and Risk Management

• Lead and manage complex and high-risk employee relations cases, ensuring fair and consistent resolution
• Provide expert guidance to managers on sensitive People matters advising on People policies and procedures, including performance management, employee development, organizational change, and other employee-related matters
• Identify trends and implement preventive solutions
• Act as country level subject matter expert for employment law and compliance.
• Ensures adherence to local regulations and global standards
• Develop complex policies and procedures for new markets ensuring legal compliance from day one
• Lead audits, risk mitigation and governance activities for the country or business e.g. ecoVardis

Business Partnering

• Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders on business strategy, organizational design, and workforce planning discussions
• Translate business goals into a clear people outcomes supporting organisational design, workforce planning and performance conversations
• Build strong, credible relationships with leadership teams
• Achieve ≥85% stakeholder satisfaction with HRBP support (measured via leadership feedback)

Talent Acquisition & workforce planning

• Partner with Talent Acquisition to improve time-to-hire and quality-of-hire for strategic roles for Us roles
• Proactively identify and address capability gaps challenging and discussing workforce plans

• Work with Talent Acquisition to enhance talent pipeline for critical and hard to fill roles for the US

• Ensure a consistent and high-quality candidate and hiring manager experience aligned with employer brand and business expectations

Capability Building, succession and talent planning

• Drive a culture of high performance, accountability, and continuous feedback
• Ensure consistent, high-quality performance management processes (100% completion)
• Identify and actively manage both high-potential and underperforming employees
• Increase proportion of high performers while reducing underperformance
• Supporting succession planning discussions within country teams and across practices ensuring talent planning for future growth
• Act as a trusted adviser to managers
• Coach and support managers on:
  • Employee relations
  • Performance management
  • Team effectiveness
• Conduct regular 1:1 with people leaders - at least quarterly to understand their people issues and support where appropriate
• Ensure the successful implementation of the employee lifecycle processes within the business to ensure employee and manager engagement
• Identify training needs and help coordinate learning activities and development programmes.
• Deliver training and guidance for all managers to deliver confident and capable managers and leaders

Reward & Workforce Insights

• Partner with Group Reward on:
  • Compensation benchmarking to support recruitment, promotion and out of cycle and compensation changes
  • Pay review processes
  • Benefit changes and implementation
• Lead country-level benefits support, including driving awareness and partnering with Total Reward on benefit renewals, enhancements, and employee communications.
• Provide insight driven recommendations to leadership
• Conduct workforce discussions with managers in relation to resignations and people changes advising on organizational opportunities

Engagement Retention

• Own and drive country-level engagement strategies ensuring that the following are taking place across the country:
  • 90 day check ins
  • Exit interviews
  • Pulse surveys
• Support and lead on implementation of targeted action plans linked to staff surveys
• Evaluate data received from core processes such as onboarding check-ins, exit interviews and make recommendations to the business partner for improvement

People Programs & Organizational Effectiveness

• Embed and drive execution of global People programs at a country level, including performance management, employee listening action planning, and training and development initiatives
• Ensure consistent adoption of high-quality execution across business areas
• Partner with leaders to translate People programs into meaningful team-level actions
• Act as the voice of the local employee population, ensuring culture nuances and country specific considerations are reflected in the delivery and adoption of global People Initiatives.

Reporting & Analytics

• Deliver reporting and interpret trends to inform decisions and develop solutions
• Monitor attrition, engagement, and employee relations patterns
• Escalate risks and recommend actions

Experience, Skills, and Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, Industrial Relations, or a related field required
• Strong experience within a People Team (Human Resources), employee relations, and compliance, evidenced by progressively senior roles in a people advisory, business partnering, or HR leadership function supporting the US market
• Experience supporting employees and leaders within an agency, healthcare communications, consulting, professional services, or other client-facing environment preferred
• Experience managing complex employee relations cases across the US, including performance management, leave and accommodation matters, layoffs, investigations, and reorganizations
• Ability to manage complexity, prioritize competing demands, and operate independently in a fast-paced environment
• Strong communication skills with the ability to adapt style and messaging to diverse audiences
• Experience influencing senior leaders and executive stakeholders
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities
• Subject matter expertise in US labor laws, employment regulations, and employment practices

Core Competencies

• Operational Leadership
• Employee Relations Expertise
• Risk Management & Compliance
• Stakeholder Influence
• Data Interpretation & Insight
• Process Improvement

Travel Requirements

• As necessary to meet business objectives