People and Culture Manager

Functional Area: People and Culture

Reports to: Deputy Country Director – Operations

Location: Country Office – Bamako

Travel required: 30% inside and outside the country

Grade; E

The position is local for Malian Citizen

Role PURPOSE

The purpose of this position is to provide leadership and strategic direction for the people and culture function within the country, maximizing the opportunities to build and retain an effective team supportive of the Plan’s business needs while fully cognizant of the risks posed by the local context and the needs of staff in the changing environment. The People and Culture Manager will work on the strategic workforce planning efforts to help reduce pressure from operational duties and timely resource departments in need to minimize vacancies. The job holder will help Plan International Mali create a culture and people approach which will help drive growth and performance and help with the management of the risks associated of such growth.

Dimensions of the Role

The Country People and Culture Manager must ensure manager and staff expectations are effectively managed and enhance the working relationship between HR operations, management teams and employees. By having clearly defined service level agreements (SLAs), this will drive customer service and operational excellence through specific response times, allowing the HR shared services team to better manage workload and priorities to drive high levels of responsiveness, accuracy and overall customer service.

• Member of the Country Leadership Team and reporting to the Deputy Country Director – Operations on all areas of opportunity, risks and long-term HR delivery;
• Directly manages HR team: 1 HR Advisor and 1 HR Officer and 1 Emergency HR Officer;
• Oversees HR needs of all the staff of the country office and the PIIAs;
• Has responsibility for compliance with organizational and statutory policies and laws on Human Resources;
• Budget responsibility limited to area specific matters;
• The monitoring of HR audit actions lists and risk register.
• Manage relationships with Staff Representatives (Délégués du Personnel)

Accountabilities

Organisational Development

• Oversee the team and is involved in the daily operations from a point of escalation for maximum impact on program quality (HR strategic planning, workforce planning, review of organization structure, roles and competency requirements and standardized Job descriptions for each position, timely and fair recruitment processes, etc.);
• Staff rewards are paid in a consistent way in accordance with local market competition, Plan’s values and the provision of labor law (salary system kept in line with Plan’s global reward framework, salary and benefits reviews based on analysis of salary survey results, etc.);
• Staff are aware of their contractual rights and responsibilities in delivering their work for Plan in line with the Code of Conduct and other policies (local and global HR and child protection policies well understood and consistently implemented across the RO, and the CO, team performance accountability mechanism in place, HR Manual reviewed and disseminated to staffs in line with local labor law requirements and aligned with Plan’s policies, etc.);
• Ensure gender mainstreaming and maintain gender sensitivity towards staff and associates to avoid discriminations while championing Plan as an equal opportunities employer. Gender sensitivity evident in HR policies and delivery of roles;
• Analyses and share with CLT HR data (recruitment, gender ratios, age, turnover, attendance etc.) to inform and influence management decision.
• Uses data, metrics and evidence to inform and drive decision making and change across the different business functions in the office.

HR Strategic management

• Provide strategic HR input into the development of Country Strategy (CS), taking an overview of the HR strategies within this to ensure that they incorporate effective workforce planning tools and are aligned to Global HR strategy;
• Drive operational excellence in line with Plan’s strategy and focuses on meeting customer needs and delivery of the agreed services to a high quality, on time and in budget;
• Risks presented by context are managed to provide maximum prevention (information and trainings available to improve staff skills and resilience, advisory packs produced and revised regularly for all visitors, incident reporting on all risk issues set up and managed, etc.);
• Analyze and develop an efficient workforce in alignment with organizational strategy;
• Develop annual budget taking into account the diverse funding streams.

Management & People and Culture advice

• Support management with advice on the People and Culture policies, legal issues and organizational change, advise and support MT on personnel matters within their team in order to support in business decisions and act as an effective business partner within the country;
• Perform role in the Country Leadership Team (CLT) to offer sound technical advice in People and Culture and staff management;
• Contributes meaningfully and evidences of sound People and Culture practices from other managers.
• Support leadership in managing relationship with staff representatives.

People and Culture Development & Performance Management

• Provide coaching and advice to Managers and Supervisors on all People and Culure issues, promoting fairness and transparency in the handling of people management practices, including whistleblowing disciplinary, grievances to maintain consistency and fairness within the organization;
• Support managers and staff in implementing the Plan Employee Appraisal process. Track progress, and maintain statistical data on results to support attainment of organizational objectives and improve staff performance;
• Liaise with line managers to develop and maintain succession plans for key roles in the country and Program offices for smooth takeover of the key roles and also implement career development plans.
• Participate fully in local NGO or multi sector People and Culture networks and ensure that learning/best practices are shared and utilized in day to day country People and Culture work for improvement in the function;

Child and youth safeguarding policy implementation

• Recruitment and engagement processes reflect Plan’s commitment to keep children safe and minimize as far as possible the risk of engaging an individual or organization unsuitable to work with children as per indicators of standard 3 (Safe recruitment, selection and engagement);
• Plan International regularly and consistently evaluates the outcomes and impact of child and youth safeguarding measures to ensure both upward and down ward accountability in relation of child protection as per indicators of standard 6 (Accountability for keeping children safe).
• Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Child Protection (CPP) and Gender Equality and Inclusion (GEI) are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.

Key relationships

Internal:

• Deputy Country Director- Operations
• Regional HR Partner, HR Shared Services team;
• A member of the WARO People and Culture Network meeting: supporting colleagues and drawing on the support they can offer;
• RO and CO Colleagues and managers/supervisors;
• A member of the Country Management Team: collaborating with other functions – sponsorship, finance, and program, operations – to ensure that HR processes are integrated.

Externally:

• Other INGO HR staff especially those operating within Mali;
• Government ministries / local authorities to deal with legal / migratory issues around employment of international staff;
• Relevant professional HR networks such as IHRD and People in Aid;
• Active participant in Mali NGO forum and Government representation on all issues related to Labor law/Social security, etc.

Globally:

• Relates to GH Child safeguarding Team for technical support Child and Youth Safeguarding;
• Relate to GH People and Culture Team for technical support on Global People and Culture Policies implementation, Learning and Development, Recruitment etc.

Technical expertise, skills and knowledge

Essential

• Master’s degree in Human Resources Management with HR professional qualifications and 5 to 7 years’ experience in HR management;
• Proven interpersonal skills (open minded, diplomatic, flexible…);
• Remains calm and positive under pressure and in difficult situations;
• Able to identify and manage risks to the organization;
• Ability to negotiation, persuade and influence;
• Good listener with strong advisory skills;
• Skills in relationship building and influencing to be more impactful
• Good at managing ambiguity in the job.
• Good at the balancing act necessary in that unit by making oneself approachable to staff while trying to uphold the organization policy and put organizational interest above own personal interests.
• Excellent writing and speaking skills, both in English and French;
• Skills in supporting strategic planning and human resourcing requirements;
• Strongly drives performance forward;
• Ability to motivate and support organizational changes;
• Creates strong sense of purpose within own part of the business and with stakeholders.

Desirable

• Knowledge of organizational development to support a changing program an advantage;
• First-hand experience and knowledge of working in development sectors in Mali or other West Africa Context in particular an advantage;
• Leads major change while keeping staff and stakeholders on board.

Plan International’s Values in Practice

We are open and accountable

• Promotes a culture of openness and transparency, including with sponsors and donors.
• Holds self and others accountable to achieve the highest standards of integrity.
• Consistent and fair in the treatment of people.
• Open about mistakes and keen to learn from them.
• Accountable for ensuring we are a safe organisation for all children, girls & young people

We strive for lasting impact

• Articulates a clear purpose for staff and sets high expectations.
• Creates a climate of continuous improvement, open to challenge and new ideas.
• Focuses resources to drive change and maximise long-term impact, responsive to changed priorities or crises.
• Evidence-based and evaluates effectiveness.

We work well together

• Seeks constructive outcomes, listens to others, willing to compromise when appropriate.
• Builds constructive relationships across Plan International to support our shared goals.
• Develops trusting and ‘win-win’ relationships with funders, partners and communities.
• Engages and works well with others outside the organization to build a better world for girls and all children.

We are inclusive and empowering

• Seeks constructive outcomes, listens to others, willing to compromise when appropriate.
• Builds constructive relationships across Plan International to support our shared goals.
• Develops trusting and ‘win-win’ relationships with funders, partners and communities.
• Engages and works well with others outside the organization to build a better world for girls and all children.

Physical Environment

This position is based at Bamako in Country Office, which at present is a normal operational environment. However, the post-holder must be willing to travel at least 20% within and outside the country.

Level of contact with children

High level: Frequent interaction with children. The incumbent will play the role of National Child safeguarding focal point and must ensure its effective implementation