Head of Human Resources, BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (Re-Advertisement) At BRAC

About the Opportunity

TheBRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI) seeks to hire a Head of Human Resources for a growing team that provides advisory services and technical assistance around the Graduation approach to various partners, ranging from governments, multilateral institutions, NGOs, and in-country technical team members.

Reporting to the Director of People and Operations, the Head of Human Resources will lead all aspects of human resource processes to deliver the UPGI scale-up strategy. There is dotted-line reporting to the Chief People and Culture Officer at BRAC International who will provide additional technical oversight and guidance. This position does not have a fixed location, but the role would require close work with staff in Africa and Asia. As a result, there is a preference for the person to be based in one of BRAC International’s hubs in the Netherlands, Kenya, or Bangladesh.

This role will be responsible for recruitment, orientation, training, benefits management, succession planning, compensation, employee recognition, morale, and compliance. This role will also include designing innovative systems and methods toward an inclusive organizational culture with equitable practices across our growing global organization.

Primary Responsibilities

Leading and driving forward the People Strategy, with its three simple objectives:

• Get the right people in the right places at the right time.
• Support our people to learn, develop and progress.
• Engage, motivate, and retain talents.

The areas of responsibility for this role include:

• Human Resources, managing global legal compliance, compensation, and benefits.
• Manage relationships with the organization’s Employer of Record and administer HR-related processes regarding setting up in a new country.
• Oversee overall employee relations, including managing concerns and complaints and helping to develop effective solutions.
• Oversee performance management, talent management, learning, and development.
• Organize staff events to build unity, camaraderie, and organizational effectiveness.
• Lead and execute long and short-term UPGI objectives ensuring staff capacity and development.
• Develop and manage remuneration strategy and payment structures, including salary benchmarking.
• Support in org-wide policy development and implementation.
• Promote the advancement of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEI&B) in all people, programs, and processes.
• Develop policies that support sustainable work practices in line with the organization’s values, culture, and DEI&B initiatives.
• Manage leadership and development programs to empower employees and promote staff development.
• Drive organizational HR strategies and implement BRAC International HR processes, policies, and procedures in UPGI and collaborate with the global HR team.

Safeguarding Responsibilities

• Establish a safeguarding culture across all level of the programme by implementing the safeguarding policy. Act as a key source of support, guidance and expertise on safeguarding for establishing a safe working environment.
• Responsible to ensure team members are appropriately trained, supported and have access to resources regarding issues that are identified and actioned in accordance with the safeguarding policy and procedure.
• Follow the safeguarding reporting procedure in case any reportable incident takes place, encourage others to do so.

Qualifications

Person Specification

We are looking for a Head of HR with proven leadership skills, the ability to see the big picture coupled with a hands-on approach to getting things done, and a passion for supporting a global workforce to thrive in challenging environments.

You take pride in the quality of service you provide; you are both strategic and responsive; you are a powerful communicator and manage wide-ranging responsibilities in a fast-moving environment. You are continually evaluating progress and looking to do things more effectively. You are a team player, building relationships at all levels with people from various professional and cultural backgrounds. You demonstrate sound judgment, integrity, and sensitivity.

Our ideal candidate would have experience in a leadership role in a global professional services firm or International NGO and strong HR experience.

Required Skills and Abilities

• Experience with leadership and people management
• Experience with strategy development and delivery
• Experience with policy development and implementation
• Operational management across a wide range of HR functions
• Strong analytical skills and a data-driven approach to continual improvement
• Excellent judgment, sensitivity, and integrity
• Flexibility to travel globally and work in different time zones as needed
• Ability to comprehend, interpret, and apply the appropriate sections of applicable laws, guidelines, regulations, ordinances, and policies
• Ability to acquire a thorough understanding of the organization’s hierarchy, jobs, qualifications, compensation practices, and the administrative practices related to those factors

Education and Experience:

• Minimum of 8 years of experience in the HR function, including at least 3 years of experience in the international development sector, is required. Working knowledge of multiple human resource disciplines, including talent management, performance management, talent acquisition, compensation practices, organizational diagnosis, employee relations, diversity, and federal employment laws, is highly preferred.
• Working experience in rapidly growing organizations will be an added advantage.

About the Organization

About BRAC

BRAC is one of the world’s largest development organizations, dedicated to empowering people living in poverty. Working across 12 countries in South Asia and Africa, BRAC touches the lives of more than 120 million people worldwide. BRAC takes a holistic approach to alleviating poverty with programs that include microfinance, education, healthcare, food security programs, and more.

About the Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative

The Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (“UPGI”) is a global unit of BRAC that was founded in 2016 to build off of the success of BRAC’s Ultra-Poor Graduation program in Bangladesh. BRAC UPGI aims to position the Graduation approach as a key driver to eradicating extreme poverty worldwide. It does this by:

• Advocating for uptake of the Graduation approach by policymakers, national governments, multilateral institutions, and non-governmental organizations; and
• Effective adaptation and implementation of the Graduation approach in countries around the world, supported through technical assistance and capacity strengthening for external stakeholders.

In 2002, BRAC pioneered the Ultra-Poor Graduation (“Graduation”) approach in Bangladesh – a holistic intervention to help people lift themselves from extreme poverty – after recognizing that existing poverty alleviation programs were not reaching the poorest people. Through the provision of livelihood assets, cash transfers, and continued mentoring and training, the Graduation approach addresses participants’ multidimensional needs within the local context and ‘graduates’ people from extreme poverty into sustainable livelihoods.

Graduation is an evidence-based, scalable intervention proven to break the poverty trap for the long term. So far, BRAC’s flagship Graduation program has impacted over 2 million Bangladeshi households—totaling over 9 million people. To help eradicate extreme poverty, BRAC UPGI is working to scale globally by integrating Graduation into existing government programs and help 21 million more people lift themselves from extreme poverty by 2026.

But BRAC UPGI cannot do it alone. This is beyond the means and capacity of a single organization- no matter how ambitious or innovative. Sustainability and scale demands change at the systems level with active government engagement. BRAC UPGI is committed to creating effective solutions that leverage the available resources and existing programming to achieve the long-term benefits demonstrated by Graduation. The organization is partnering with governments, as well as multilateral institutions, NGOs, and civil society, in countries where BRAC UPGI thinks it can have maximum impact and drive greater uptake for Graduation.