Head of HR

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With a workforce of more than 3000 employees spread across Ireland, United Kingdom, Mainland Europe, MENA, and the USA, Uniphar is a trusted global partner to pharma and MedTech manufacturers, working to improve patient access to medicines around the world. Uniphar provides outsourced and specialised services to its clients, leveraging the strong relationships with 200+ of the world's best known pharmaco-medical manufacturers across multiple geographies, enabled by our cutting-edge digital technology and our highly expert teams. Uniphar is organised into three key divisions: Supply Chain Retail & On Demand, Uniphar Med Tech and Uniphar Pharma.

Supply Chain & Retail

Supply Chain Services provides both pre-wholesale and wholesale distribution of pharmaceutical, healthcare and animal health products to pharmacies and hospital nationwide. The business supports a diverse customer base through the provision of strong service levels coupled with innovative commercial initiatives. In addition, the business provides services and supports that help independent community pharmacy to compete more effectively in an increasingly difficult environment and runs a network of Uniphar-owned pharmacies under the Life, Allcare, McCauleys and Hickeys symbol brands.

Pharma – On Demand

The On-Demand business is a specialist medical supply business that sources and distributes pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and consumable supplies to healthcare professionals in over 160 countries worldwide. We have offices in Ireland, UK, Europe, USA and New Zealand. The company's main divisions encompass everything from International Sales through Sales to NGO's and Charities, Clinical Trials Supply, Imported (Unlicensed Medicines), Sexual Health Supplies, and the storage and distribution of medical products and devices for third parties.

Culture at Uniphar

Uniphar is a combination of many businesses each with its own identity, culture, values, and ways of working. Our overarching culture narrative is inclusive of each of these stores. Uniphar lives and breathes four key pillars which unpin and support our culture.

We have a people first approach - we do the right thing. We support entrepreneurial spirit where adaptability, commitment & resilience is embodied in our way of working. We have a Common Purpose that connects our diversified businesses and people. Finally, Trust is at the heart of how we operate.

Everything Uniphar does is enabled by our people and as we continue to grow domestically and internationally, we become more diverse. This diversity fuels our business and culture.

Sustainability

Sustainability is at the core of what we do and is deeply embedded in our business strategy. We want to contribute positively to the people and the world around us. Running our business in a sustainable way ensures that Uniphar will continue to prosper in the long-term. We are focused on ensuring that each of the five pillars of our sustainability strategy are a fundamental part of our decision-making process.

The role

The purpose of this role is to lead the team providing HR support to our Operations Leadership Teams, made up of more than 350 colleagues throughout Ireland. This is an initial 2-year fixed term contract working as part of the leadership team focused on enhancing our people culture, leading our engagement strategy as well as being responsible for all change management projects across the Operations / Distribution division.

In this role you will play a crucial role in shaping the culture across the business units as well as delivering the People Strategy through your team in line with our divisional strategy. Working closely with the Operational Leadership team you will promote HR best practice.

You will be responsible for implementing initiatives to enhance employee engagement, communications, leadership development, individual development, and career mobility in conjunction with the divisional HR Lead. You will provide advice and support to the Leadership and wider team in relation to all aspects of the employment relationship including managing the full HR lifecycle to support the business.

You will be joining a team of experienced HR professionals who are working to create these best-in-class programmes, initiatives, and strategies within the division with Workday as the HR foundation.

Key Outcomes and Responsibilities

• Lead the Operations people strategy implementation, driving engagement and open communication to maintain a positive people culture.
• Be the HR champion on all change management projects within operations.
• Cultivate a positive workplace culture, enhance engagement, and champion diversity and inclusion initiatives across our pharmacies.
• Work to create a seamless employee experience, along with Retail Leaders, HR and other support functions.
• Identify emerging HR-related compliance requirements and prioritise them in coordination with the business and HR colleagues.
• Track industry best practices related to key HR processes, evaluate and improve existing practices to ensure we are continuously improving and evolving.
• Represent Retail Pharmacy in cross-divisional and cross-functional projects.
• Work with the wider HR team to understand HR processes, policies and practices that could be leveraged and implemented across Operations.
• Be an advocate for change across within the business unit.
• Work to address HRIS/systems challenges, work with teams to be solution focused.
• Work with the HR Lead to drive a high-performance culture through solid performance management practices, partnering with and coaching Leaders to address performance challenges in operations.
• Lead and mentor your HR team, fostering continuous learning and building a high-performing team capable of supporting and implementing our divisional goals.
• Work with the operations HR Team to implement initiatives to mitigate employee relations risks, resolve conflicts effectively while at the same time foster a coaching culture among store colleagues.
• Work with the Divisional HR Lead and our internal Talent Partners to create and implement a strategy for employee development, identify high-potential colleagues, and provide an assessment and development talent framework to support future succession planning across our retail network.
• Using industry and internal knowledge develop tailored 'People Plans' which support business strategy goals around key areas such as Talent Development, Leadership, Performance, Total Reward, Retention, Organisational Design, Diversity & Inclusion and Succession Planning.
• Support the Divisional HR Lead in HR Budget management.
• Be the lead on IR/ER initiatives across Operations maintaining positive engagement with unions.
• Invest in the growth and development of your team. Give your time generously so that others may learn from you.

We are looking for:

• Extensive experience (8+ years) in leadership roles encompassing talent management, learning and development, engagement, and internal communications, preferably within the FMCG, manufacturing or logistics industry.
• Proven track record of developing and executing successful people strategies aligned with business goals.
• Strong understanding of diversity and inclusion best practices, with experience driving ED&I initiatives.
• Excellent project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and stakeholders effectively.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate across all levels of the organization.
• Strategic thinker with the ability to translate business objectives into actionable HR and L&D initiatives.
• An individual who has a real interest in what we do, how we do it and how we can shape it in the future.
• A progressive, non-bureaucratic approach to HR.
• An ability to work in an agile way. Comfortable with ambiguity.
• Enjoy working in an entrepreneurial culture that moves quickly and requires rapid response and the ability to make quick, sound decisions.
• Courage to challenge our leaders and HR to make better decisions.
• Excellent relationship building and communication, with the ability to move between listening to, guiding and coaching others at all levels.
• Common sense – always spots opportunities to simplify and improve processes to drive better results.
• Marketing, communication and presentation skills to facilitate projects and initiatives.
• Understands what's not important, to keep us focused on our strategic people agenda.
• In-depth knowledge of HR principles, practices, and legal requirements.
• Strong understanding of change management principles and experience leading organizational change initiatives.
• Ability to collaborate and build strong cross-functional relationships.
• An approach of listening carefully and asking questions to understand the why and the how of our current state while partnering to build our future state.
• Patience and persistence in driving sophisticated projects over the finish line against a landscape of regularly changing priorities.
• Focused always on business impact and colleague experience.

How we'd like to work together

Due to the expected key outcomes associated with this role by its nature it will be a role based out of our headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. There will be an element of hybrid working available. It is important to note that we do not expect this job to be a '9 to 5' type position. In return for your flexibility, you will be joining an environment that understands how intertwined work and life have become - and both the benefits and challenges that brings - and therefore offers a flexible, progressive way of supporting it.