What will be your key responsibilities?

Business Unit leadership and thought partnership 

• Serve as strategic thought partner to the GM and Cluster Leadership Team on the people implications of WE business choices, including growth, effectiveness, affordability, capability build and leadership readiness. 

• Act as Go-to Person on selected European people priority or lead a project on those. 

• Bring resilience and a growth mindset to lead through ambiguity, competing business priorities and transformation pressure, while maintaining energy, focus and confidence across the WE organization. 

Shape business strategy:  

• Shape the development of the European P&O Strategy providing unit and local insights. Translate these Strategy into clear WE people priorities and roadmap that reflects the cluster’s country complexity, different market maturities, local legal and works council environments, and the need to deliver consistent business outcomes across the region. 

• Act as the voice of Associates and bring external and data-led insights. 

• Shape and support the transformation agenda for the West Europe cluster, ensuring the people strategy enables growth, simplification, organization effectiveness and stronger leadership ownership across all five markets. 

• Leverage and build effective partnerships across the P&O Operating model. Ensure the recent transition to MyP&O in Austria and Switzerland is fully adopted and delivering a simpler, consistent Associate and leader experience in every country. Provide local insights to influence priorities and collaborate to ensure high quality solutions are delivered to the business  

Organizational Design & Change Management 

• Identify specific unit capability and skills requirements to deliver the business strategy  

• Collaborate with GM and Leadership Team to govern headcount investments  

• Ensure fit for purpose organizational design, in alignment with regional/global principles   

• Identify productivity efficiencies opportunities to fuel growth and enhance the Associate Experience. 

• Co-pilot the transformations with people implications that the unit is going through at a certain moment 

• Guide leaders on key change management requirements  

• Drives leadership activation on themes of Mars Associate experience  

• Partner constructively with the Works Council in the Netherlands, ensuring engagement is respectful, timely and solution-oriented while enabling required business and organizational transformation. 

Shape Culture  

• Role Model and guardian of the Five Principles, the desired behaviors and Associate Concept; coach leaders to role model 

• Act as ambassador of our culture specific behaviours and embed signature programs locally 

• Provide data-led insights to influence positive outcomes in engagement, health and I&D  

• Deploy and embed the winning behaviors as a business-performance lever, coaching the WE Leadership Team to make them visible in priorities, routines, decision-making and performance conversations. 

Talent Enablement 

• Coach and support Line Managers to most effectively support Associates; build a culture of development and learning  

• Champion and embed signature talent processes to enable a diverse associate population  

• Drive Succession Planning, Talent Development/Reviews, Workforce Planning and Leadership Development within the unit 

• Support leaders with understanding current and future workforce requirements  

• Partner with the GM in the development of the Leadership Team members  

People Leadership 

• Lead and develop the WE P&O team, consisting of one P&O Business Partner and one P&O Operations team, creating clear priorities, strong collaboration and a growth-minded, resilient team culture

What are we looking for?

• Extensive experience of progressive P&O and/or leadership experience 

• Line Management experience  

• Demonstrated capability in deploying all dimensions of people and organisation strategies, policies and legal requirements  

• Experience of driving change at scale 

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, critical thinking and decision-making skills; able to influence and establish credibility with a broad range of stakeholders  

• Experience of shaping and deploying strategies, fully embedding them locally so they sustain  

• Strong communicator, articulate and to the point whilst also able to inspire large groups behind a compelling vision. 

• Able to work with diverse teams in diverse locations, engaging their input and commitment to success. 

• Proven experience leading people strategy across a multi-country cluster or similarly complex matrix environment, with the ability to balance European consistency and local market relevance. 

• Demonstrated ability to work constructively with employee representative bodies, including works councils, while progressing transformation and change agendas. 

• Strong resilience and growth mindset, with the ability to learn fast, adapt, stay effective under pressure and help others navigate change. 

Preferred experience:  

• Cross-functional experience  

• Experience working at local, regional and global level

What can you expect from Mars?

• Work with diverse and talented Associates, all guided by the Five Principles
• Join a purpose driven company, where we’re striving to build the world we want tomorrow, today
• A strong focus on learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University
• An industry competitive salary and benefits package, including company bonus

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