Director, UK People & Culture

Join the International Rescue Committee as the Director of People & Culture in the UK, focusing on fostering an inclusive workplace and implementing HR strategies.

• As a member of the UK Senior Management Team, assume collective accountability for the effective delivery of IRC UK’s Strategic Plan.
• Serve as an advisor and thought partner to the Executive Director and fellow SMT members on the UK application of IRC’s Global P&C strategy, and lead on strengthening IRC UK’s kind, inclusive and high-performing organisational culture.
• Support talent dialogues, performance conversations, and career development planning for IRC UK staff, embedding a culture of continuous learning.
• Partner with peers on workforce planning — including managing workforce adjustments such as staff reductions or scale-up, and organisational design work — in partnership with senior management, the Regional Director P&C Europe, and Global P&C Partners, ensuring compliance with local and global policy while minimising risk and supporting affected staff.
• Translate data and metrics into actionable items in line with IRC UK’s strategy.
• Lead, supervise, and develop the UK P&C team, accountable for team quality and effectiveness and for building a skilled, motivated team ready to advance.
• Manage end-to-end HR service delivery across the employee lifecycle; recruitment, onboarding, contracts, payroll coordination, benefits, performance and leave management, offboarding, and HR information systems, maintaining high-quality, context-specific P&C practices aligned with organisational standards.
• Provide leadership on UK employment law and regulation to the UK HR team, ensuring the HR team supports supervisors of UK staff in the management of their teams in a supportive and compliant way.
• Provide high quality HR partnership to the Refugee, Asylum and Integration (RAI) UK Director and team to support programme needs and donor requirements.
• Advise supervisors on appropriate disciplinary actions, coordinating with Global Employee Relations and Legal on complex or escalated disciplinary proceedings, to ensure fairness and compliance with employment law.
• Responsible for P&C reporting for the UK Board of Trustees and People & Culture Committee, and for the annual production of IRC UK's Gender Pay Gap and Ethnicity Pay Gap reports, in line with IRC's global P&C reporting standards and applicable UK statutory requirements.
• Support any organisational restructure requirements, including active management of any necessary staff consultation and resulting redundancy processes, by providing expert guidance to management and affected staff throughout the process.
• Track UK P&C objectives set by Global P&C and contribute HR input - organisational structure, position scoping, staffing analysis - to proposal design and grant review processes.
• Lead the delivery of regular staff engagement surveys, analysing data and proposing leadership actions in response.
• Working with the UK Executive Director, maintain the relationship with UK Trade Union (Unite) representatives, and negotiate and consult via the quarterly Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC), driving progress on policy and annual salary review negotiations.
• Develop and manage union engagement and communication plans that support open, honest, and productive dialogue across the office.

• CIPD qualified with significant HR leadership experience across the full P&C spectrum, including complex UK processes such as restructures, TUPE, and employee relations.\*\*
• Strong interpersonal and analytical skills, with proven ability to operate effectively in a complex, global matrix organisation. Solution-oriented, positive, ‘can do’ attitude.
• Strong knowledge of UK employment law, with experience of advising and influencing senior leaders.\*\*
• Experience of working with Trade Unions, including leading on consultations and negotiations.\*\*
• People management experience.\*\*
• High level of confidentiality, tact, service orientation, and intercultural communication skills.Ability to manage competing priorities and complex, multi-stakeholder projects independently, with willingness to take on significant responsibility.
• *Compensation: (Pay Rate: £58,500-£69,400/yr). Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget. Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.

• Promote employee experience, engagement, and inclusion, and oversee the integration of IRC's Values (the ‘[IRC Way](https://www.rescue.org/page/our-code-conduct)’), People Manager Standards, and Employee Success Factors across the employee lifecycle.
• Implement safeguarding standards set by the global Safeguarding function across hiring and onboarding, and ensure the IRC Way and reporting channels are visible in all IRC UK locations.
• Serve as a local advocate for Employee Wellbeing, Employee Engagement, and Safeguarding priorities set by global functions, and role model safe, inclusive, and caring leadership standards.
• Operate and promote collaboration in a highly matrixed environment where several units intersect and work together to reach joint decisions.
• Accountable for the effective delivery of specific P&C-owned elements of IRC UK's Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (GEDI) Strategy and Action Plan, as well as assuming joint accountability for the full GEDI Strategy and Action Plan as a key member of IRC UK SMT.