Since 1944, Heifer International has helped more than 36 million families lift themselves out of hunger and poverty.
Our goal is to help families achieve living incomes that will allow them to feed their families daily, educate all their children, and have proper housing, water, hygiene, and other essential resources. When many families gain this new sustainable income, it brings new opportunities for building schools, creating agricultural cooperatives, forming community savings, and funding small businesses.
Heifer Kenya has been in operation in Kenya since 1981. Our Strategic focus is to assist 650,000 farmers and pastoralist households through projects that promote sustainable farming practices and improve nutrition and economic security. Heifer Kenya focuses on improving farmers’ incomes and families’ nutrition by providing technical assistance for agricultural production and business management and by connecting farmers to markets in the dairy, beef, poultry, and horticulture value chains.
We seek a dynamic, flexible, and results-focused People Business Partner at Heifer Kenya to fill the Country People (HR) Manager role. The position holder will support Heifer’s strategic objectives by managing the People Function in the country office of Kenya and contributing to the Africa People Strategy via a matrix management structure.
Are you excited to join the diverse, passionate team and help improve livelihoods and increase sustainable living Income for smallholder farmers?
The Role
Reporting Directly to the Heifer Kenya Country Director with a matrix reporting relationship to the Africa People Director, the position holder will actively engage in HR business strategy development and contextualization, assist business and senior management to identify emerging people issues, and support organizational change processes as well as broker HR solutions for country programmatic impact. The role will further develop and coordinate the implementation of the people strategy for Heifer Kenya in line with the business and group people strategies.
The role will foster a customer service culture, coordinate with external and internal customers of the HR function, and deliver HR services per expected standards. Therefore, the role will also provide operational leadership in performance management, talent management, recruitment, reward, health and safety, learning and development, organizational development, and HR business processes.
The Person
You are a university graduate with significant HR training and 8-10 years of experience, 5 of which will be in managing HR functions in a dynamic organization. To meet the diverse needs of this role, you will have strategic solid HR operations understanding, customer service orientation, flexibility, the ability to prioritize competing demands, good project management, and interpersonal skills backed with the ability to work within a team and autonomously. You will have good computer skills and previous experience developing teams and working with senior leaders. Knowledge of legal employment obligations in line with the Kenyan national labor law will be an added advantage. Experience working in an International/Multinational private sector, NGO, and/or governmental environment will be an added advantage.
People strategy
- Develop and monitor overall HR strategies, systems, and tactics to respond to country needs while aligning with regional and global People Strategies and objectives.
- Strive to achieve global, regional, and country People Objectives relevant to the country.
Recruitment Talent Acquisition
- Work with country directors and other stakeholders to assess talent needs for proposals and new projects.
- Manage full cycle including posting, interviews, checking references, background screening, contracting, and onboarding while staying in compliance with Recruitment Policy and SOP.
- Manage Recruitment process documentation and recruitment database and reporting.
Employee Engagement and Relations
- Ensure legal compliance throughout human resource management processes and guidelines.
- Maintain high-quality HR records and systems. Keep local and global HRIS systems up to date.
- Produce timely and high-quality reports on significant personnel changes, department objectives, and global KPIs. Keep secure human resource records and maintain confidentiality.
- Help the Regional HR representative to complete timely internal HR Audits.
- Bridge management and employee relations by addressing demands, grievances, or other issues.
- Work closely with the Regional HR team to facilitate in Diversity Inclusion initiatives.
- Oversee and manage a performance appraisal system that drives high performance.
Compensation Management
- Participate in compensation reviews and benchmarking and work closely with the Regional People team.
- Drives internal equity by following the applicable compensation policies and advising management on compensation levels based on internal equity and external competitiveness analysis.
- Maintain and work with regional and global team pay plans and benefits programs.
Learning & Development
- Identify in-country training needs, plan, manage and coordinate the delivery of learning solutions across the business, ensuring the completion of the training plan, including the Organization's mandatory training.
- Provide advice and coaching to line managers in the country according to established HR policies and procedures to enable people management topics.
- Perform any other duties and responsibilities as required by Heifer Kenya Senior management.
Essential Competencies
- Ability to manage complexities, cultivates innovation, is action-oriented and plans and aligns work process to drive excellence.
- Ability to manage the culture and environment of the organization relative to the country, regional, and HQ levels. Ability to adapt and be flexible to act in a changing and complex environment, with a multitasking mindset.
- Deep understanding of INGO or global context. Strong understanding of country labor law.
