HR Programme Manager

About Us

IPG Mediabrands is the media and marketing solutions division of Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG). Mediabrands manages approximately $40 billion in marketing investment globally on behalf of its clients and provides strategic services and solutions across its award-winning, full-service agency networks UM and Initiative and through its innovative marketing specialist companies Kinesso, Magna, Orion, Rapport, Healix, Mediabrands Content Studio and the IPG Media Lab. Mediabrands clients include many of the world’s most recognizable and iconic brands from a broad portfolio of industry sectors. The company employs more than 13,000 marketing experts in more than 130 countries representing the full diversity of humanity. For more information, please visit our website: www.ipgmediabrands.com.

About the Team

Our EMEA Talent (HR) team aims to be the driving force behind talent brilliance. We elevate, empower, and enrich people’s experience enabling them to fulfil their potential and exceed our goals. 

A team of 10, reporting into the Chief Talent Officer, EMEA, we support the goals of the business by enabling our 21 local market HR teams with best practice, tools and technology, ensuring a consistently adopted operating model for our Talent Management systems and operations. Our team consists of Centres of Excellence, Talent Operations and Strategic Talent Partners.

Embedded within the regional agency leadership teams, our Strategic Talent Partners have a good understanding of the commercial realities of the business and feed that back into their work with the Centres of Excellence, talent management and markets to support the delivery of our strategic talent priorities.

Our Centres of Excellence (Culture & Inclusion, Talent Development, Talent Operations, Talent Acquisition & Talent Management) support the Strategic Talent Partners, market Talent leads and their teams to deliver on their Talent strategies by providing inspiration, thought-leadership, strategies and initiatives from the centre that they can make their own. These initiatives help drive the market and regional KPIs and align with and complement our Global Talent goals.

Role Description

We are looking for a driven and proven Talent (HR) Programme Manager to join our EMEA Talent team as we look to support our business to deliver its exciting growth and transformation plans. The role will work across the function to shape and integrate our regional Talent plan - including the design and implementation of our roadmap, programme, and talent management cycle to deliver our ambitious people and culture agenda.

The successful candidate will have the relevant experience and credibility required to collaborate with our Talent leaders and teams across our Centres of Excellence, Strategic Talent Partners and market Talent leads. The role will lead on the design and embedding of a Talent Programme designed to support the business through growth transformation and ensure that the Talent function operates effectively using best in class programme methodology.

This role creates a fantastic opportunity for an entrepreneurial, strategic, collaborative and future focussed individual who thrives in complex, international environments and is passionate about being part of a culture that truly empowers local teams to deliver for the business and our people.

The role will have line management responsibility for the Talent Coordinator and provide workload planning, guidance and mentoring for that person. 

Key Responsibilities

Programme & Project Management

• Collaborate with key stakeholders to devise and implement the overall EMEA Talent programme and project plan to support the CoE Leads and Strategic Partners.
• Own the programme plan, ensuring EMEA Talent team activities and initiatives are managed effectively.
• Work closely with the Global Talent project manager to align priorities and manage EMEA elements of global projects.
• Design and embed programme methodology (e.g. Agile, Predictive, Hybrid) within the EMEA Talent team. Work collaboratively to educate the Talent team on programme methodology, standard operating procedures and change management capability - ensuring documents, templates etc. are up-to-date and accessible to relevant teams.
• Support inclusive ways of working with diverse teams, adapting the approach where appropriate.
• Play the role of project manager on key projects using platforms like Asana and Copilot to manage project workflows efficiently, ensuring that key milestones are identified and communicated to key stakeholders/milestone owners.
• Lead, motivate, and manage cross-functional project teams. Delegate tasks and provide guidance to team members.
• Identification, and management of key interdependencies, risks and action across the programme plan and Talent Management cycle.
• Ensure timely execution of tasks and deliverables.

Reporting & Communication

• Maintain regular communication with stakeholders to provide project updates, address concerns, and manage expectations – pushing back and re-prioritising where necessary.
• Provide ongoing project work documentation i.e. meeting agendas, minutes and action items, updates, resources, toolkits, progress reports and outcomes (Powerpoint & Word).
• Analyse data and measure KPIs, provide reporting dashboards (Excel & Power BI)and translate findings into actionable insights and recommendations.

Relationships, Management & Training

• Manage the tasks associated with the Talent Coordinator, EMEA. Provide clear expectations, direction and training to be successful in the role.
• Build and maintain close relationships with the Talent leads and teams across the region to provide insights, best practice and business knowledge.
• Act as an advisor, supporting markets find local relevancy while maintaining regional & global consistency.

Desired Skills & Experience

• Prior experiencein managing large-scale HR programs/projects with multiple stakeholders is essential. 
• Proven ability to manage change effectively.
• Strategic thinker that can align plans to overall organisational goals and demonstrate a proactive approach to identifying challenges and proposing solutions.
• Proficiency in using project management tools (Asana, Monday, Notion) and data visualization tools (Power BI) is a strong advantage, as well as advanced use of the full MS Office suite. 
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret data and draw actionable insights.
• Confident and effective communication skills, both written and verbal. 
• Self-motivated, organized, and detail oriented.
• Self-aware, with the ability to flex your influencing style to be effective across a diverse range of senior stakeholders and audiences.