Head of Human Capital (with a pathway to CPO)

Who are we?

Studio 21 and the Design Studio group are a name synonymous with the end-to-end sourcing of high-end ladies-wear for the UK and European high street retailers. We produce roughly 6 million sustainable garments annually with a headcount of circa 3,000 members across our three production plants, central warehouse, and head office based in Sri Lanka, with our Sales & Marketing office operating in London.

What is the role?

The Head of Human Capital guides manages and provides strategy on the people function across our entire business in Sri Lanka. This role is fundamental to developing a company’s culture, development, organization, and recruitment. This role originates and leads HR practices and objectives that will provide an employee-oriented, high-performance culture that emphasizes empowerment, quality, productivity and standards, continuous professional development and self-improvement, in-house career progression, goal attainment, staff wellbeing, relationships built on trust, and the recruitment and retention of a superior workforce.

Typically, you will lead the implementation of policies and programs and execute the overarching strategy through the smaller HR teams who are localized at our individual companies and locations, by effectively managing them. This means sharing a close working relationship with HR colleagues from across the localized parts of our business, providing guidance, and actively removing impediments that deter them from delivering the HR strategies, programs, and policies that have been committed to.

What will be your key accountabilities (outcomes you will drive)?

• Supporting the group’s overall strategic objectives through the pillars of talent acquisition, upskilling, coaching, management and retention
• Developing, documenting and implementing modern, fit-for-purpose HR policies (including but not limited to policies across the areas of recruitment, company values & ethics, employee handbook, conduct, safety, disciplinary & termination)
• Developing, maintaining and executing the group HR strategy and other supporting organisational transformation programmes as necessary, to ensure we remain competitive and on par with global trends whilst being mindful of our local context (e.g. end-to-end ownership of a new graduate & junior talent programme, utilising modern recruitment and PR channels such as LinkedIn, TopJobs and Facebook, a digital onboarding process for new recruits via the HRMS mobile app)
• Managing the wider HR function across the group incl. supporting local HR teams with impediment resolution; timely talent reviews & performance management and hosting regular check-ins & feedback sessions; the co-creation and validation of team objectives, roadmaps and status updates / progress reports
• Ensuring compliance with all legal requirements and labour laws, as well as internal compliance with recommended ways of working (e.g. IT & Data best practices)
• Product ownership of the digital HRMS platform, ensuring the system is being utilised to its fullest potential, all policies and other employee information is kept up-to-date and compliant, as well as being the negotiator and bridge between the IT team and our business users in order to support any system or configuration changes and updates
• Managing staff wellbeing, assuring zero-tolerance health & safety standards and fostering a corporate culture of mutual respect & inclusion, diversity, continuous improvement of daily work, an enhanced relationship between managers and their reports, good communication and team collaboration across the organisation
• Identifying, designing and directing training programmes and workshops that help achieve our target corporate culture as well as provide technical expertise on par with apparel industry best practices

What knowledge and skills are expected in an ideal candidate?

• Owns the outcomes and takes responsibility
• Strategic thinking and being a visionary
• Role modelling – demonstrating the values, initiatives and culture of the organisation
• Professional expertise – a strong working knowledge of labour legislation and industry-relevant compliance requirements
• Minimum 5 years of experience in a similar position with a background in leadership, employee relations and problem-solving
• Strong communication skills in both Sinhala and English
• Personable, approachable and able to build strong relationships with employees across backgrounds
• Emotional intelligence, ability to manage diverse viewpoints and promote inclusion
• Commercial acumen and industry knowledge
• Coaching and mentoring talent, across grades / roles
• Trust, integrity & candidness in expressing one’s opinion and expertise as a confidante in the leadership team Organisational skills – personal efficiency, balancing diverging priorities, managing your time and that of your direct reports, and maintaining the right level of documentation as a habit and not an afterthought
• Expertise in Microsoft Office 365 and HR Management Solutions (e.g. hSenid PeoplesHR, Workday, Oracle HCM)

*The selected candidate will have a pathway and opportunity to eventually becoming the Chief People Officer (CPO) based on their performance following the probationary period.

As we continue to grow rapidly in our operations, we are keen to welcome genuine, passionate, and creative self-starters who are keen to drive meaningful change, into our family. If this sounds like you, we can offer you a challenging and diverse working environment where we are always learning from each other, with clear talent pathways and opportunities to climb up the corporate ladder!