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About the Role

The People and Culture (P&C) Director manages the HR team in IRC UK, ensuring effective HR service delivery, compliance, and continuous improvement. This role localizes the global people strategy, fostering a positive, inclusive, and high-performing workplace culture aligned with IRC’s values. As a member of the UK Senior Management Team, the Director is accountable for delivering IRC UK’s Strategic Plan and developing leadership competencies and organizational effectiveness.

Responsibilities

Serve as an advisor and thought partner to the Executive Director and SMT on the UK application of IRC’s Global P&C strategy.
Lead on strengthening IRC UK’s kind, inclusive, and high-performing organizational culture.
Support talent dialogues, performance conversations, and career development planning for IRC UK staff.
Partner on workforce planning, including managing staff reductions or scale-ups and organizational design.
Ensure compliance with local and global policy while minimizing risk and supporting affected staff.
Translate data and metrics into actionable items in line with IRC UK’s strategy.
Lead, supervise, and develop the UK P&C team, ensuring team quality and effectiveness.
Manage end-to-end HR service delivery across the employee lifecycle.
Maintain high-quality, context-specific P&C practices aligned with organizational standards.
Provide leadership on UK employment law and regulation to the UK HR team.
Support supervisors of UK staff in managing their teams in a supportive and compliant way.
Provide high-quality HR partnership to the Refugee, Asylum and Integration (RAI) UK Director and team.
Advise supervisors on appropriate disciplinary actions, coordinating with Global Employee Relations and Legal on complex proceedings.
Responsible for P&C reporting for the UK Board of Trustees and People & Culture Committee.
Produce annual IRC UK Gender Pay Gap and Ethnicity Pay Gap reports.
Support organizational restructure requirements, including managing staff consultation and redundancy processes.
Track UK P&C objectives set by Global P&C and contribute HR input to proposal design and grant review processes.
Lead the delivery of regular staff engagement surveys, analyzing data and proposing leadership actions.
Promote employee experience, engagement, and inclusion.
Oversee the integration of IRC's Values, People Manager Standards, and Employee Success Factors.
Implement safeguarding standards across hiring and onboarding.
Ensure the IRC Way and reporting channels are visible in all IRC UK locations.
Serve as a local advocate for Employee Wellbeing, Employee Engagement, and Safeguarding priorities.
Role model safe, inclusive, and caring leadership standards.
Operate and promote collaboration in a highly matrixed environment.
Accountable for the effective delivery of specific P&C-owned elements of IRC UK's Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (GEDI) Strategy and Action Plan.
Maintain the relationship with UK Trade Union (Unite) representatives.
Negotiate and consult via the quarterly Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC).
Drive progress on policy and annual salary review negotiations.
Develop and manage union engagement and communication plans.

Requirements

CIPD qualified with significant HR leadership experience across the full P&C spectrum.
Experience with complex UK processes such as restructures, TUPE, and employee relations.
Strong interpersonal and analytical skills.
Proven ability to operate effectively in a complex, global matrix organisation.
Solution-oriented, positive, ‘can do’ attitude.
Strong knowledge of UK employment law.
Experience of advising and influencing senior leaders.
Experience of working with Trade Unions, including leading on consultations and negotiations.
People management experience.
High level of confidentiality, tact, service orientation, and intercultural communication skills.
Ability to manage competing priorities and complex, multi-stakeholder projects independently.
Willingness to take on significant responsibility.
Candidates must have the right to work in the UK.

Skills

HR leadership
HR service delivery
HR compliance
Continuous improvement
Global people strategy localization
Workplace culture fostering
Communication skills
Relationship building
Influencing decisions
Matrix environment navigation
Stakeholder management
Talent management
Performance management
Career development planning
Workforce planning
Organizational design
Data translation
Team leadership
Team development
Employee lifecycle management
Recruitment
Onboarding
Contracts management
Payroll coordination
Benefits administration
Performance management
Leave management
Offboarding
HR information systems
UK employment law
Employee relations
Disciplinary actions
P&C reporting
Gender Pay Gap reporting
Ethnicity Pay Gap reporting
Organizational restructure management
Staff consultation
Redundancy process management
Proposal design
Grant review processes
Staff engagement surveys
Employee experience promotion
Employee engagement promotion
Inclusion promotion
Safeguarding implementation
Employee Wellbeing advocacy
Collaboration
GEDI Strategy implementation
Trade union relationship management
Consultation
Negotiation
Union engagement planning
Union communication planning
Intercultural communication

Location

Work Type

Full-time

Experience Level

Significant HR leadership experience
Experience of advising and influencing senior leaders
People management experience

Education Level

CIPD qualified

Salary/Compensations

£66k-£75k/yr

Benefits

Flexible hours (when possible)
Enhanced maternity/adoption leave and pay
Gender-sensitive security protocols

About the Company

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster.
Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world's largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and 29 U.S. cities.
IRC UK is part of the IRC global network, which has its global headquarters in New York.
Our team in the UK – approximately 220 colleagues – works to raise profile, deliver policy and practice change, and increase funding.
Since 2021, IRC UK has also provided integration services directly to refugees across the UK.
In Europe, the IRC currently operates in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Greece and Poland.

Equal Opportunity

IRC UK strives to be an equal opportunities employer.
IRC UK is committed to equality of opportunity and to non-discrimination for all job applicants and employees.
We seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce regardless of gender, race, religious beliefs, nationality, ethnic/national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability.
IRC UK welcomes applications from all candidates, including underrepresented groups and refugees who have the right to work in the UK.
IRC UK will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided with reasonable adjustments to participate in the job application and/or interview process, and for essential job functions if appointed to a role.