Advisor, People Operations – Edinburgh At Mercy Corps

Position Description

Location: Edinburgh, UK
Office: Office presence about 2-3 days/week minimum
Position Status: Full-time
Salary: starting salary for this role will be circa £32,000 annual commensurate with experience
Closing date: Candidates must submit applications before February 14th

Candidates must have the independant right to work in UK at the time of appointment.

About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible. To do this, we know our teams do their best work when they are diverse and every team member feels that they belong. We welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have long term impact.

Program / Department Summary

The People Team ensures that Mercy Corps has the people resources, systems, culture and support in place to allow our team members to thrive. With the support and contributions of the individual units, including Global Talent, Global Human Resources, Systems and Analytics, Total Rewards, and Gender, Diversity and Inclusion (GDI), the People Team seeks to foster and achieve fulfilled, equitable, inclusive, diverse, and high performing global teams. We do this through recruiting and retaining the best global talent and shaping this talent into our future leaders through equitable development opportunities, and then by driving strategic partnership at all levels of the organization. We steward the organizational culture through our systems, structure, and processes and align conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion, wellbeing, total rewards, and safeguarding priorities; and connect all of this to our core operations and overall mission.

General Position Summary

The People Operations Advisor is responsible for providing support and guidance to ensure a consistent and impactful team member experience. The breadth of support this role provides is broad, from helping to ensure timely recruitments, supporting promotions and transfers, interpreting and giving advice on employment policies and processes and supporting program locations with local HR policies, process and procedures. The People Operations Advisor will consolidate lessons learned in order to develop and refine processes, policies and standard operating procedures to help continually improve Mercy Corps’ capacity to ensure a positive team member experience. Success in the role depends on identifying needed activities and actioning on them independently, the ability to understand how to balance immediate action with necessary rigor, quickly implement lessons learned into existing processes and procedures, effectively liaise between teams to achieve quick results and being willing to jump in to support the various administrative processes required in a complex, high demand People function.

Essential Job Responsibilities

SUPPORTING PEOPLE OPERATIONS

• Act as a primary point of contact for team member inquiries and employee life-cycle support.
• Triage all incoming inquiries, either through direct resolution or escalation to Team Lead, People Operations as necessary.
• Facilitate all employee life-cycle processes, including but not limited to opening requisitions for recruitment, communicating offers of employment, conducting reference, MDS and criminal background checks, facilitating onboarding, processing promotions, transfers and pay increases and supporting end of employment activities.
• Provide stewardship of People Operations processes, policies and workflows. Maintain effective and consistent engagement in all responsibilities and advocate for changes that can ensure continuous improvement and increased efficiency.
• Engage and support team projects and initiatives.

Synthesizing Learning and Promoting Best Practices

• Collaborate to develop and maintain an operational toolkit to support HR practices and procedures.
• Contribute to agency level after action reviews to help promote organizational learning.
• Consolidate People-related learnings and lead processes to implement recommended changes to increase efficiency and effectiveness.
• Partner with Ethics & Compliance to ensure practices and processes enhance Mercy Corps’ culture of integrity and accountability

Support Global People Team Capacity and Priorities

• Engage as an active contributor and collaborator to Global People Team priorities. Able to lead work streams as assigned.
• Provide additional capacity to teams during times of enhanced demand, especially around times of program start-up and close down.
• Ensure Global People Team processes, procedures and policies complement program lifecycle requirements. Proactively partner with relevant teams to address gaps as needed.

Support European People Team Capacity

• Engage as a primary resource for the operationalization of technical, legal and statutory requirements for Mercy Corps European locations.
• Ensures People Operations processes and procedures account for European requirements.
• Partners with HR Advisor, Europe and Head of HR, Europe to remain up to date on all compliance and policy changes and facilitates any updates or revisions to People Operations team engagement.

Supervisory Responsibility

N/A

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Team Lead, People Operations

Works Directly With: Global People team, European-based team members, Regional Directors and Leadership teams, European and US Program Support teams, International Finance team, General Counsel, Global Procurement and Logistics.

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Minimum Qualifications & Transferable Skills

• 5 or more years of experience in human resources, with at least 3 in generalist or advisory capacity.
• 3 or more years of experience within the humanitarian and international development sector experience at the country/ program level is preferred.
• Demonstrated experience supporting the breadth of processes that define the employee lifecycle experience.
• Comfort and familiarity supporting and advising teams operating in complex and rapidly evolving humanitarian contexts.
• Familiarity with humanitarian program start up activities, particularly related to the range of People-related activities.
• Proven ability to work productively with a wide variety of stakeholders to run both participatory processes and also meet tight deadlines with an emphasis on producing quality products.
• Exceptional written and interpersonal communication skills.
• Availability to work non-standard hours as needed.
• Able to read, write and speak English proficiently is necessary. French, Arabic, Spanish and/or Russian language skills are also preferred.

Success Factors

The successful People Operations Advisor is able to provide meaningful, time-sensitive and impactful People-related advice and direction in support of evolving team member needs. They are comfortable navigating complex and ambiguous situations and are willing to adapt within a changing context. They are able to triage problems and recommend solutions in support of the strategic aims of the People Team. They are confident in their ability to independently identify needed actions and are proactive in resolving them. Finally, they are eager learners and are willing to engage in the individual and collective reflection needed to constantly improve.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

This role is based in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. The individual must have the independent right to live and work in the United Kingdom. Occasional international travel may be required, possibly with little advance notice to locations with complex safety and security environments and limited services.

Ongoing Learning

In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC and have signed on to theInteragency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere toMercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and

values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.