Head of HR Programmes

Job Title: Head of HR Programmes

Location: UK, Remote (some travel to HALO’s international programmes required)

Hours: Full Time

Contract Type: Permanent

Salary: Competitive, dependent on experience

Reports To: HR Director

Direct Reports: IHRMs

Key Internal Contacts/Relationships:   Head of HR Operations, HR Operations Team, Talent Acquisition Team, Head of Talent & Performance, ER, Programme Directors and Programme Managers, CFO, Finance, UK/HQ Functional Leads, Central support functions, ExCo (as required)

Key External Contacts/Relationships:  Suppliers

Job Purpose: To provide senior strategic HR partnership to HALO's international programmes, supporting programme leaders to manage workforce, employee relations, safeguarding and organisational capability issues effectively across complex operating environments, while ensuring alignment with organisational policies, values and legal obligations. The role provides an auditable route for escalation of complex or sensitive employment, conduct or safeguarding issues. The role holder ensures that people decisions affecting international programme staff are proportionate, timely and grounded in operational reality, while safeguarding independence from programme management and maintaining consistent standards of HR support across regions. 

About HALO:

HALO is the leading global NGO addressing the impact and drivers of conflict in 30 countries and territories, with over 8,000 staff. Most of our staff are local employees and include a growing number of women.

Our primary duty is to serve people affected by conflict, clearing landmines and the explosive remnants of war that threaten lives and livelihoods long after fighting has finished. We make land safe where war has ended, while also assisting those affected by active conflict and endemic violence.

HALO addresses human suffering caused by armed violence in some of the world’s most fragile places, securing weapons and ammunition and working with both state and community actors to reduce the prevalence of armed violence.

About the role:

The role covers all HR partnering activity for HALO's country programmes. It operates across multiple jurisdictions and employment frameworks and within varied funding models, including grant funded and fixed period contractual arrangements.

The role does not hold line management accountability for country (national) teams. Authority is exercised through professional judgement, influence and established governance, including determining escalation and acting as the senior HR adviser on complex people, safeguarding and workforce matters across HALO's programmes.

Responsibilities:

Strategic People Partnership:

• Act as the senior HR partner to programme leadership on workforce, employee relations, leadership and organisational capability matters.
• Support programme leaders to design and apply employment and contracting arrangements that are proportionate to programme duration, funding terms and operational need.
• Provide senior level HR advice that supports programme leaders to operate effectively in complex, resource constrained environments.
• Oversee workforce planning and contracting approaches suited to different operating contexts, ensuring structures remain flexible enough for programmes to scale capacity up and down as operational need changes.

Employee Relations and Safeguarding:

• Act as the senior HR partner to programme leadership on complex people, safeguarding and duty of care matters, providing expert, decision-focused advice that supports timely and proportionate resolution, but with programme leadership retaining ownership of decisions and outcomes.
• Support programme leaders to anticipate and address people challenges arising in fragile, high-risk and resource-constrained operating environments. 
• Maintain oversight of significant people and safeguarding matters across programmes, ensuring consistency of approach, proportionality of response and appropriate escalation in line with organisational standards.
• Ensure that significant people and safeguarding considerations are appropriately communicated to Executive and Board stakeholders, with clear articulation of context, options and mitigations.

Policy Application and Standards:

• Interpret and apply global HR policies within diverse local and legal contexts, exercising professional judgement where policy intent, donor conditions and operational reality intersect.
• Support programme leadership to understand and meet their legal, safeguarding and people-management obligations across multiple jurisdictions, balancing compliance with operational effectiveness.

Assurance and Risk:

• Support the delivery of the HR assurance programme through reviews of workforce practices, employee relations, safeguarding, duty of care and people management arrangements across programmes. 
• Provide professional judgement on programme-level workforce risks, control effectiveness and compliance with organisational standards, identifying themes, emerging risks and improvement opportunities. 
• Support programme leadership to implement agreed corrective actions and strengthen people management practices following assurance reviews.

Leadership and Capability Development:

• Strengthen people management capability across programmes through coaching/mentoring, advice and support on complex workforce, employee relations matters, training, performance, development and succession planning.
• Support programme leaders to apply organisational people policies and processes confidently and consistently.
• Manage and develop the Regional HR network, ensuring consistent regional support, visibility of ER and safeguarding matters, and early intervention on emerging issues.
• Ensure HALO’s values and standards are reflected consistently in people decisions and leadership behaviour across programme teams.

Interface with HR Operations:

• Act as the primary interface between programme teams and HR Operations, ensuring workforce challenges, operational realities and programme feedback inform the continuous improvement of HR policies, systems and processes, and supporting the consistent application of organisational standards across programmes.
• Work jointly with the Head of HR Operations to maintain common standards, shared escalation routes and a joined-up approach to case handling across the organisation.

General:

• Uphold HALO’s core values and standards, promoting its ethos and mission statement.
• Ensure familiarity with and adherence to all HALO policies and procedures, especially the code of conduct and safeguarding

Travel Requirements:

• Occasional travel to programmes globally

Technical / Professional:

• Significant leadership experience, including in international, multi-jurisdictional or complex operating environments.
• Demonstrable experience of managing remote teams effectively across multiple countries or regions.
• Experience providing senior level advice to non-HR leadership and operating with autonomy in ambiguous or fast-moving situations.
• Ability to calibrate HR responses appropriately, distinguishing between complex, high-risk cases and matters that can be resolved pragmatically and proportionately.
• Deep expertise in employee relations, safeguarding and managing complex people issues in international environments.
• Strong understanding of UK employment law and law across multiple jurisdictions.
• Advanced professional judgement in ambiguous, high-risk environments.
• Ability to translate complex risk into clear, decision focused advice.
• Strong understanding of embedding a safeguarding assurance framework.

Behavioural / Leadership:

• High credibility and gravitas with senior operational leaders.
• Influential without authority; confident challenger.
• Calm, measured and values-led under pressure.
• Strong ethical judgement and organisational awareness.
• Ability to develop and lead HR teams across multiple jurisdictions.

Desirable Requirements:

• Experience working within a not-for-profit / global matrix organisation.
• International employment law knowledge