HR Director - Woking

Asahi UK (AUK), part of Asahi Europe & International Ltd, aims to enrich consumer experiences through innovation, high-quality service and an exceptional portfolio of premium beer, ale and cider brands including, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Asahi Super Dry, Meantime, Fuller’s London Pride and Cornish Orchards. Our aim is to be the leading super premium beer business in the UK, through a brand mix that creates a compelling proposition. At AUK we operate as an end to end business unit responsible for sales, marketing, customer operations, production, supply chain and wholesale operations in the UK & Ireland. For further information, visit http://www.asahibeer.co.uk

Asahi Europe & International is a subsidiary of Asahi Group Holdings Ltd, a global beverage and food company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Japan. Employing > 12,000 people, Asahi Europe & International is the custodian for leading super premium lager brands Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Grolsch, Asahi Super Dry, plus international Czech lager brands, Pilsner Urquell and Kozel. The business has world-class brewing and production facilities in 8 markets – UK, NL, ITL, PL, CZ, SK, HU, RO. In most of these markets, we are the leading brewer with full portfolio of famous brands. Commercial operations in other parts of Europe, USA, Canada, LatAm, Africa and Asia are served through our global distribution network. With state-of-the-art facilities, some of the best brewers in the world, quality ingredients, and a culture based on innovation and collaboration, Asahi offers the best quality of beer to beer lovers worldwide. More information can be found at http://www.asahiinternational.com

HR Director

Key purpose statement 

The HR Director is a key member of the company’s Leadership Team (Excom) and is accountable for shaping and driving the people agenda with specific responsibility for all the key people processes.  The HR Director will be accountable for the strategic interface between HR and the designated business / functional leaders to embed the right approach to human resource management to deliver business results. The incumbent will manage and quality-assure the embedding of Asahi Europe & International’s HR approaches and processes, while ensuring that the interests and needs of the business unit and its employees are addressed.

Key dimensions 

Number of direct reports:  4 Direct / 10 Indirect
Internal customers:  All employees, Country Executive Team, AEI Executive Team, HRDs, Hub & Local HR Line Managers, Functional Directors
External customers:   Suppliers and external partners (e.g. Head-hunters, benefits providers, Training Partners, Legal Firms)

 Key accountabilities

HR Strategy and plan

• Partners with the leader and leadership team of the Business Unit (BU), in effectively leading, managing and supporting their teams to successfully deliver the Business strategic plan.
• Part of the Regional HR team supporting and shaping the regional HR strategy and plans ensuing we optimize for Asahi first
• Works with the Functional Directors to translate business needs into clearly articulated and actionable organisation and people requirements informing the year-on-year Capability Strategy and plan.
• Champions and supports leaders and leadership team in creating a sustainable high performance high engagement culture for the business in line with our values and behaviours.
• embed the principles of the HR Operating model in the BU and create a highly capable professional and valued HR team.
• Ensure a high quality, professional and valued HR service to the BU based on an outstanding commercial understanding. Ensure that the HR service delivered drives business results and supports the business strategy.  This will entail being accountable for communicating, implementing, leveraging, and embedding the core HR processes (talent management, performance management, organisation development, learning and development, compensation and benefits, industrial relations, employee engagement).

Line Manager Capability

• Build line management people management capability to ensure we have the best people in the right roles, doing the right things the right way, and motivated to do more.
• Facilitate the development of high performing leadership, management, and cross functional teams (team effectiveness).

Core People Practices

• Drives talent management practices to ensure the right talent in the business both now and for the future. This includes identifying talent needs and gaps and build a plan to address.
• Ensure a strong internal and external talent pipeline is in place.
• Use the talent data and work with the leaders to ensure that this data is used to inform talent planning as part of the business planning process.
• Rolls out policies, playbooks and training related to performance management and career development.
• Inputs into improvements of the existing AEI practices based on business feedback and market best practice.

Culture

• Work collaboratively with the business leaders to co-create a plan to shape the desired culture (high performance, high engagement) and ensure impactful execution.
• Review feedback from local Organisation Effectiveness (or equivalent) surveys as well as other people data (e.g., exit interviews, KPI scorecards) to understand issues associated with engagement and develop and implement appropriate plans to focus on building engagement where needed.
• Support the annual goal setting processes, ensuring an aligned collective effort focused on strategic priorities and measures.
• Coach leaders, managers to resolve specific team or individual performance gaps and capability issues swiftly, using appropriate tools or procedures.

Industrial Relations (IR) 

• Ensure positive sustainable partnership with the employee representative group and successful manage the relationship .
• Provide the leadership team with long- and short-term external IR situation and ensure built into Business plans

Learning & Development

• Clarify the Business learning needs required to deliver the strategy and work with the HUB HR and L&D Specialists to develop an L&D plan to address gaps.
• Support leaders to develop mentoring and coaching relationships with key talent and skill.
• Track the progress and the performance impact of L&D plans and amend the plans as necessary

Skills & Experience required:

• University degree, preferably in Business and/or Human Resources or other relevant discipline.
• Track record of building excellent relationships and credibility with senior business leaders based on solid commercial understanding and an ability to identify customer needs and go beyond just delivering defined HR solutions.
• Ability to think strategically and conceptually and solve business problems with pragmatic and speedy solutions – assimilating issues and ideas into clear requirements, generating alternative solutions based on own insight or learning.
• Experience leading HR leveraging specialist disciplines and how to best leverage these – ranging from talent management and career development, recruitment, performance management, organisational development and design, compensation, and benefits, to learning and development.
• Experience with managing employee relations and employee groups.

We are committed to nurturing a workplace where we celebrate and respect difference, and support everyone to be true to who they are! At Asahi Europe and International we believe you can SHINE AS YOU ARE – no matter your age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabilities, religion, or beliefs.  We want to support you to be courageous in your individuality and to know that whoever you are and whatever your circumstances, you can belong with us without having to conform.