European HR Director – scale up agenda
This company is “coming of age” after a period of rapid growth as part of expanding outside their home market. They have further organic and acquisition international growth plans, and to enable these, they need the support of a pragmatic and dynamic HR leader who will work directly with a regional CEO and leadership team.
As the company’s first European HR Director, you will be building and implementing frameworks that will continue to drive a dynamic and entrepreneurial culture, whilst ensuring consistency of practices, efficiency and fairness of HR operations, engagement and retention of new hires, ongoing talent and performance management - all without losing the innovative, passionate and supportive culture that has already been a key element of the company successes through its early startup phase.
You’ll certainly need to have a “jack of all trades” mindset - there will be no shortage of change, ambiguity, critical projects and “all hands to the pump” moments until you help the company to develop more scalable people management strategies and operations. If you’ve already worked through the chaos of a startup or fledgling organisation, you’ll appreciate the challenges of juggling operational delivery with strategic thinking.
You’ll be leading and developing a substantial HR team, currently with different levels of maturity across multiple locations in the region. Ensuring that this team is motivated, technically proficient, consistent and pro-active with their advice, and able to provide accurate data and talent market intelligence in short time frames - this is just another of the many priorities in this role.
In addition to a blue collar workforce, the company has a significant number of employees with an advanced technical and commercial skillset, so this role will particularly suit the HR professional who can offer solutions with reasoning and influence through facts and data, rather than the HR leader who prefers a “policy police” and/or emotive approach in their communications. Professionals with supply chain, logistics, distribution or FMCG work histories will be highly regarded for immediately applicable skills.
This person can be based from the company’s offices within France, the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain or Italy. We are mindful that the culture of the company may take many iterations as the company continues with an aggressive growth trajectory, so “water cooler” moments are particularly critical for the foreseeable future - as a result you can expect to be regularly traveling, often at short notice to provide “troubleshooting” support in new markets. A current passport will be essential and we don’t predict this role will be viable as a remote work arrangement anytime soon!
Ideally you will offer:
a working knowledge of multi-jurisdictional labour laws across Europe with direct exposures to Works Council and Union operations, to help on risk management for employment legislation compliance and labour law interpretation
direct experience in owning the HR elements of due diligence and integration support for acquisitions
a track record for building and implementing practical HR policy, process and talent management plans tailored to suit local cultural nuances, and
the technical savvy to build structures to manage fairness for pay and performance management.
fluent English written and verbal language skills. Any additional European languages would be useful but are not essential.
a work history of delivering successfully through the complex matrix and reporting structures of a multinational company, and knowing how to pick the best of that and apply it within the ambiguity and “everything yesterday” demands of a scale up company culture.
advanced commercial savvy with an ability to find creative solutions that match business needs.
courage to influence and stand your ground whilst demonstrating a high degree of emotional intelligence.
current EU or UK citizenship (apologies but work and residency visa sponsorship is not possible at this time for other citizens).
This high-profile role will attract a base salary to your EU or UK home country employment contract (UK equivalent up to £150,000) plus a performance bonus, and assuming that the company continues on its current growth trajectory, there will be plenty of opportunity for the role to broaden further in scope and reward.
If this sounds like the challenge you've been seeking for your next career move, please do make contact directly. Interviews are being scheduled currently, with a view to an employment offer being extended in the coming weeks.
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