Global Labour Relations Leader – based from UK / Germany / Switzerland
Strategic global leadership appointment for a mission-driven healthcare organisation undergoing significant organisational transformation. Extensive expertise across European labour law, Works Councils, trade unions and multinational employment legislation was essential, along with the commercial capability to influence executive leaders whilst navigating complex organisational change.
Remit challenge:
Our client was seeking an experienced Global Labour Relations leader to take ownership of an enterprise-wide labour relations agenda during a period of unprecedented transformation - workforce reductions in some regions, accelerated hiring in others, integration of acquired businesses, organisational redesign and increasing technology adoption had created a highly complex employee relations landscape.
This individual would lead an international team whilst partnering with HR and business executives globally to reduce employment risk, strengthen governance, develop globally consistent labour relations frameworks and support commercially sound decision-making across multiple jurisdictions.
Hiring Challenges:
Finding senior Labour Relations professionals with genuine global expertise, and getting their commitment to change employers was tough in a market where the best contenders were already valued highly by their current employers, and dedicated to completing business critical projects. The successful individual required deep practical knowledge of European employment legislation, particularly across continental Europe, together with exposure to US employment practices and ideally APAC markets which shrank the talent pool considerably. Beyond technical capability, our client needed someone equally comfortable negotiating with Works Councils, trade unions and employee representative bodies as they were influencing executive stakeholders and operating within a complex global matrix environment – this also reduced the talent pool as many target employer companies were relying on external legal counsel for negotiations rather than being setup with internal experts. The requirement for a highly commercial mindset, proven transformational leadership experience, multiple language capabilities and willingness to travel internationally narrowed an already very limited talent pool even further.
Solution:
We launched a targeted international search, leveraging our specialist networks across Europe and across global employment law communities. Significant time was invested in assessing not only technical expertise but also leadership style, commercial judgement and the ability to build trust across culturally diverse workforces and executive teams. Within 3 weeks of commencing our search, we presented a carefully curated shortlist of highly qualified leaders whose backgrounds aligned closely with the client's hiring criteria. Following a competitive interview process, the preferred candidate accepted the employment offer with no unnecessary negotiation, having been thoroughly managed on expectations throughout the recruitment process. They have since commenced in role, taking ownership of the global Labour Relations function and providing the strategic leadership required to support the organisation through its next phase of international growth and transformation.
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