People Services Manager

Arcadis is the world's leading company delivering sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets.

We are more than 36,000 people, in over 70 countries, dedicated to improving quality of life. Everyone has an important role to play. With the power of many curious minds, together we can solve the world’s most complex challenges and deliver more impact together.

Role description:

The People Services Manager role will be the key lead in developing efficient people services to support our People Function for the country or group of countries that enhances the overall employee experience.

This role will be reporting to People Services Director - Europe.

Role accountabilities:

To manage the country People function in line with global ways of working to develop an efficient and effective People Services for Arcadis.

This role will lead the alignment and harmonization of country people services to ensure a positive and seamless employee experience for all Arcadians.   The role in co-ordination with the defined global ways of working will plan and manage the operational delivery of services that executes the activities associated with the employee lifecycle. The role requires leading the country people team to a global tiered service delivery including the transition of work to our shared services centers. The role will require the adoption of new people technology and this role requires the person to advocate and drive local adoption. 
 
In more detail, the People Services Manager will:

People Services Delivery and Transformation  

• Establish a high-performing People Services team with a healthy balance between globalized and localized activities.
• Implement the globally defined processes and procedures for people service delivery, and ensure they are compliant  with local labor law.
• Ensure at a country level there is clarity around roles, responsibilities, points of escalation & workflows for country People Services and interaction with other parts of the operating model  (ie COEs and BPs).
• Ensure country people services policy and procedures are aligned with global policy and procedures. Help drive process alignment that supports a consistent and efficient People Services function and employee experience.
• Monitor and communicate country service delivery metrics to inform continuous improvement.
• Engage with country stakeholders for ongoing feedback on people services delivery.
• Ensure the HCM system in Oracle or relevant system of record is accurate and up to date and corresponding HR processes are efficient and effective to enable the business to manage staff and aligned globally.
• Ensure People system access is managed in line with the company access management policy.
• Participate in any internal and external audits to enhance service delivery.
• Ensure that people data is accurate and update to allow for local and global reporting requirements.

Shared Services  

• Work with the appropriate SS leads/project team to implement the people services shared services strategy that leads to a centralized, efficient, and scalable shared services model that enhances operational efficiency, reduces costs, and improves service delivery across the country.
• Process Standardization: Identify and standardize core People services processes to be centralized within the shared services center, ensuring consistency and quality.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Collaborate with wider business to ensure seamless integration and alignment of shared services with existing operations.
• Performance Measurement: Using the established KPIs and SLAs, monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of shared services for the country, ensuring continuous improvement.

Payroll

• Ensuring that all country employees are paid in line with local legislation/procedures.
• Compliance Oversight: Ensure adherence to local labor laws, tax regulations, social security policies, and global data protection (e.g., GDPR).
• Technology Integration: Oversee the implementation and management of payroll systems that integrate with HRIS, ERP, and financial tools, leveraging automation for efficiency.
• Process Optimization: Standardize payroll processes while accommodating country-specific requirements; drive continuous improvement initiatives.
• Change Management: Communicate payroll changes effectively, execute change management plans, and address employee concerns.
• Performance Monitoring: Define KPIs, conduct audits, and report on payroll operations to measure success and identify improvement areas.
• Cost Management: Manage payroll budgets and identify opportunities for cost optimization.

Employee and/or Labour Relations

• Ensure that People services policies and procedures are in line with local country legislation.
• Ensure that all privacy obligations are adhered to with respect to the collection, use and storage of employee data.
• Assist with acquisition due diligence and integration for relevant People services processes and policies that require review and alignment.

Technology

• Advocate the adoption of greater employee and manager self-service and develop ideas for greater self service.
• Implement digital people services aligned to the global implementation plans.
• Support functional design of enabling technology enhancements with a focus on implementing The Arcadis Way (TAW) in business units and geographies.
• Allocate key users for digital people solutions and ensure the attendance at community meetings.
• Support the roll out of Arcadis Way, and where necessary ensure operations team members are involved in continuous improvement implementations. 

Country People Function Management  

• Manage the country People Services team to ensure processes align to global ways of working and overall P&C strategy.
• In conjunction with country/regional People Business Partners and COE specialists, lead the delivery of initiatives which support our employer of choice ambitions ensuring an aligned and consistent approach and narrative is adopted across the people function and wider business within country.
• Co-ordinate across People Services, COEs and People Business Partners to implement the blueprint for the functions target Operating Model in the country and in alignment with other enabling functions.
• Develop relationships with and supporting senior leadership teams and other key stakeholders to ensure the alignment of the People services delivery with the business strategy.
• Contact point for local / country crisis management response.

General   

• Role Model the Arcadis Way principles.
• Act as a visible steward of health and safety and ensuring familiarity and compliance with Health and Safety regulations and guidelines including wellbeing and resilience.
• Where required, undertake external promotion and presence for both the Arcadis and personal brand in the marketplace through though leadership and speaking engagements.
• Travel: This role will may require travel from time to time to meet with key stakeholders, and attend meetings and workshops.
• Depending on location it may require to work outside normal business hours. 
   

Qualifications & Experience:

The candidate should have a bachelor degree (preferably in human resources) and  progressive human resource experience and relevant experience in a complex international matrix setting. They should have broad experience and understand the complexity of implementing people activities and particularly in HR operations. 

Further the candidate should have thorough knowledge of a professional services business and driving change and harmonisation (including leading, motivating and developing remote teams).

Other required experience and competencies for this role:

• Demonstrated management skills and ability to coach and guide a team of HR professionals 
• Having a broad knowledge of all major components of People related functions, employee/labour relations, payroll, management of change, diversity, compensation, benefits and talent development.
• Experience in transitioning work to a shared service center. 
• Experience in implementing payroll systems and improvements. 
• Experience in implementing HRIS and interaction with connected systems. 
• Business Fluency with financial acumen and operations knowledge.
• Strong customer service mindset and experience in working in a tiered service model accompanied by Shared service. 
• Stakeholder management and the maturity to deal with local management at all levels 
• High level communication skills (English proficiency at last C1)  strong consulting, coaching and presentation skills.

Why Arcadis?

We can only achieve our goals when everyone is empowered to be their best. We believe everyone's contribution matters. It’s why we are pioneering a skills-based approach, where you can harness your unique experience and expertise to carve your career path and maximize the impact we can make together.

You’ll do meaningful work, and no matter what role, you’ll be helping to deliver sustainable solutions for a more prosperous planet. Make your mark, on your career, your colleagues, your clients, your life and the world around you.

Together, we can create a lasting legacy.

Join Arcadis. Create a Legacy.

Our Commitment to Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

We want you to be able to bring your best self to work every day which is why we take equality and inclusion seriously and hold ourselves to account for our actions. Our ambition is to be an employer of choice and provide a great place to work for all our people. We believe that by working together diverse people with different experiences develop the most innovative ideas. Equality, diversity and inclusion is at the heart of how we improve quality of life and we work closely with our people across six ED&I Workstreams: Age, Disability, Faith, Gender, LGBT+ and Race. A diverse and skilled workforce is essential to our success.

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