Regional People & Culture Director - West and Central Africa (WACA) at Plan International

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian non-profit organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood, and enable children to prepare for - and respond to - crises and adversity. We believe in the power and potential of every child, but know this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination.

We are recruiting to fill the position of:

Job Title: Regional People & Culture Director - West and Central Africa (WACA)

Location: Nigeria
Employment Type: Contract
Functional Area: People and Culture (P&C)
Type of Role: 5 year fixed term contract
Reports to: Executive Regional Director, West and Central Africa and Chief People Officer

Role Purpose

• Plan International is an independent child rights and humanitarian organisation committed to children living a life free of poverty, violence, and injustice.
• We actively unite children, communities and other people who share our mission to make positive lasting changes in children’s and young people’s lives. We support children to gain the skills, knowledge, and confidence they need to claim their rights to a fulfilling life, today and in the future. We place a specific focus on girls and women, who are most often left behind.
• We have been building powerful partnerships for children for more than 85 years and are now active in over 80 countries.

We engage people and partners to:

• Empower children, young people, and communities to make vital changes that tackle the root causes of discrimination against girls, exclusion, and vulnerability.
• Drive change in practice and policy at local, national, and global levels through our reach, experience, and knowledge of the realities children face.
• Work with children and communities to prepare for and respond to crises and to overcome adversity.
• Support the safe and successful progression of children from birth to adulthood.

As One P&C, we support the achievement of Plan International’s Global Strategy by:

• Creating a more engaging people experience,
• Supporting the evolution of our workforce
• Accelerating performance, leadership, and learning
• Promoting technology and process excellence

Plan International embarked on an ambitious and exciting strategic change initiative to make the organization more transparent, legitimate, and agile. Strengthening our People and Culture processes is one of the key enablers in attaining our strategic goals.

• The Regional P&C Director provides strategic leadership and direction to the People and Culture function across the Region, ensuring that P&C strategic framework and good practices are applied, and reflect local considerations such as contexts, culture, and employment laws.
• Enable Country Offices through a globally integrated P&C function. Drive One P&C through consistent execution of P&C strategic initiatives in the region with appropriate contextualisation to enhance the organisation’s performance.
• Ensure that the Country Offices have P&C capacity and capability to deliver their strategic and operational plans. Integrate P&C capability into the global P&C team (i.e., sharing of skills and expertise across the region/s)
• Partner with Regional Director to nurture agile organisational culture, change management practices, drive organisational performance, sustainability, and effectiveness through our people.

Dimensions of the Role

• Through our Global Strategy and ambition, from now to 2027, to see All Girls Standing Strong Creating Global Change, we strive for a just world that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.
• Plan International’s West and Central Africa Region has 14 Country Programmes with projected income of approximately 240 million euros in 2023 and approximately 3000 staff.
• Country programmes within the Region are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

The role operates in scope of, and aligned to:

• Plan International’s Global Strategy
• P&C Strategy and Strategic Plan and P&C Global Frameworks
• Regional Hub Value proposition and Accountability Framework
• Industry and People management emerging practices and standards
• Country Strategy of the Country Offices

Other dimensions are:

• Review and sign off Country Offices P&C budgets.
• Management of Regional P&C budget
• Line Management of Regional Hub P&C, matrix management of Country Office P&C Managers.

Accountabilities
Strategic Leadership and Direction:

• Provide strategic leadership and direction to the People and Culture function across the Region, ensuring that P&C strategic framework and good practices are applied. Ensure proper contextualisation and agility.
• Support the development of the Country Office P&C priorities, aligned with the global P&C Strategy and Strategic Framework
• Facilitate talent management and succession planning in the region. Ensure short- and long-term succession bench strength for organisational leadership and strategic leadership roles. Work with regional leadership teams to ensure succession bench meets the organisational targets.
• Facilitate and support people analytics and data driven decision making by regional leadership teams. facilitate data integrity on HRIS.
• Foster a culture of inclusivity, diversity, and equity within the region and provide support and guidance to the Country Offices.
• Ensure workforce planning in each country is future oriented and applicable in the context of the high unpredictability and fragility.

Globally integrated, and appropriately contextualised P&C function:

• Ensure that P&C policies, procedures, and practices are adapted to the local context and legislation. Incorporate region and industry specific local promising practices, including talent acquisition, rewards, and succession planning. Actively participate in global initiatives development.
• Ensure that policies, procedures, and practices are effectively communicated to all relevant regional stakeholders.
• Work with Talent Acquisition team to support organisational and strategic leadership roles’ sourcing and recruitment.
• Represent Plan International in regional professional forums, facilitate Country Office P&C manager’s participation.
• Provide regional leadership to the humanitarian response, support the scale up of emergency responses, when applicable. Support and provide expertise to the Surge P&C Manager and the Country Office P&C team during emergency response in the region, as required.
• Ensure diverse humanitarian succession bench strength and workforce planning across the region.

Regional P&C capacity and capability:

• Adopt a culture of continuous improvement in the region– process, policies, and systems.
• Provide Matrix Line management to Country Office P&C Managers.
• Review and develop P&C capability and competencies across the region; Ensure that the Country Office P&C Managers are equipped to partner with the Country Directors and be part of the Country Management Team. Ensure that the Country Office P&C teams are equipped to deliver on agreed priorities, in line with global P&C strategy, plans and frameworks.
• Champion, design, implement and communicate key global people management initiatives like Employee Value Proposition, Staff Care and Wellbeing, Employee Engagement, Culture, Feminist Values, Total Rewards, Employee Relations, Workforce Planning.
• Ensure that the  the region has robust case management capability. Understand and address harmful behaviours in Country Offices and Regional Hub, contradicting our Feminist Values, such as discrimination, power abuse, etc.
• Oversee Strategic Workforce planning of the P&C function across the region; coordinate cross regional talent management and strategic workforce planning.

Agile Organisational Culture:

• Provide strategic People and Culture business partnering to the Regional Director and leadership team to nurture agile organisational culture, change management practices, drive organisational performance, sustainability, and effectiveness through our people.
• Support and manage all people aspects of Plan’s global strategy and change agenda and provide a people management perspective for key change initiatives and actions. Contribute to the contextualisation and implementation of Plan International Inc strategic initiatives, and support business change activities across the region.
• Facilitate greater understanding of contexts and be intentional in designing, customising, and overseeing Organisational Design and Development practices.
• Ensure that Plan International’s global policy for Safeguarding and Plan International Inc policy for Preventing Sexual Harassment Exploitation and Abuse; and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility.
• This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.

Key Relationships

• Regional level: Regional Director, Director/s Sub Region, Regional Leadership team and Regional Management team
• Global: Chief People Officer and People & Culture Management Team
• Country level: Country Directors, Country Office Management Teams
• Matrix management/oversight of Country Office P&C Managers
• Regional P&C and One P&C networks and other external networks

Technical Expertise, Skills and Knowledge
Essential:

• Significant professional expertise and in-depth knowledge acquired through professional qualifications, inherent understanding, and substantial relevant experience in developing and embedding people, capability, and organisational / Human Resources practices.
• Fundamental understanding and extensive experience of working in strategic and operational aspects of people, capability, and organisational / Human Resources practices (i.e. employee engagement, total rewards, workforce planning, talent acquisition & management, employee relations, etc) in a leadership role in large, geographically dispersed, matrix organisation and ability to plan and prioritise work within the context.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, multi-cultural environment, and to anticipate, manage and conclude competing priorities ensuring maximisation of regional/ P&C specialist area effectiveness.
• See Business Management and Leadership and P&C Technical Competencies
• Fluent French and English

Desirable:

• Portuguese language skills
• Experience of working in non-profit sector
• Masters in human resources, or related field
• Understanding of P&C implications of working with young people, partners, and volunteers.

Business Management and Leadership Competencies:

• Understanding Plan International in context Business Competency, aligned to ‘We are open and accountable’ Leadership Competency, Maintaining professionalism.
• Working well together: Listening to colleagues, stakeholders, and partners with humility, sharing information and listening to their input, being open to feedback, aligned to Managing people and relationships business competency.
• Adapting and coping in challenging and changing environments
• Self-awareness, aligned with Plan International Leadership Competency ‘I see and develop myself as a leader’.
• Motivating and influencing others, and working with others, aligned to ‘We work well together’ Leadership competency, and Business Management competency ‘Managing People and Relationships’:
• Working with others, managing people, and promoting culture of equity, diversity and inclusion.
• Delivering results: Planning and managing resources, projects and partnerships for the effective and efficient delivery of results, aligned to the Leadership Competency ‘We strive for lasting impact. Ensuring a realistic budget is in place for the team and our activities, aligned with business priorities and including planned change (We are open and accountable).

P&C Technical Competencies:

• Customer Focus: Ability to understand the needs of various stakeholders and focus on continuously improving the stakeholder experience.
• Business Acumen: Ability to understand influence, and translate key business drivers, priorities, and demands of various stakeholders in a globally diverse organization.
• Critical Thinking: Ability to conceptualize, apply, analyse, synthesize, and evaluate information.
• Versatility: Collectively through a Global network of People and Culture utilize molt-faceted skills sets to perform a wide variety of role/ specialisations.
• Steward of the Culture, Agility and Change Orientation: Ability to nurture and act as a champion of an agile organisational culture of high performance, inclusion, innovation, and engagement. Ability to anticipate challenges, comfortable with change and shifting priorities, able to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty.
• Data Savviness: analyse and communicate strategic insights and trends to influence & support business decision making for different stakeholders and audiences.
• Creativity & Innovation: create diverse solutions and ideas and take constructive criticism to further stretch the imagination of what is possible.
• End to end process design: Customer and stakeholder centric design of processes rather than internal focused.
• Technology savviness: Affinity with technology and how to use digital tools to improve executional excellence.

PLAN International’s Values In Practice
We are open and accountable:

• We create a climate of trust inside and outside the organisation by being open, honest and transparent.
• We hold ourselves and others to account for the decisions we make and for our impact on others, while doing what we say we will do.

We strive for lasting impact:

• We strive to achieve significant and lasting impact on the lives of children and young people, and to secure equality for girls.
• We challenge ourselves to be bold, courageous, responsive, focused and innovative.

We work well together:

• We succeed by working effectively with others, inside and outside the organisation, including our sponsors and donors.
• We actively support our colleagues, helping them to achieve their goals.
• We come together to create and implement solutions in our teams, across Plan International, with children, girls, young people, communities and our partners.

We are inclusive and empowering:

• We respect all people, appreciate differences and challenge inequality in our programmes and our workplace.
• We support children, girls and young people to increase their confidence and to change their own lives.
• We empower our staff to give their best and develop their potential.

Physical Environment:

• The role will be based in an office setting, with considerable amount of work from home as well.

Level of Contact with Children:

• Low contact: No contact or very low frequency of interaction.

Application Closing Date
23rd June, 2023.

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online