Senior Labour Relations Manager

Sage; Barcelona; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible benefits

Medical and dental insurance

Well-being programs

Flexible working

Job summary

Sage in Barcelona, Spain seeks a senior Labour Relations lead to shape and deliver national strategy across Europe. You will partner with senior leaders, oversight bodies, and legal teams to modernise employee representation and manage regulatory risk within a complex multi-country environment.

You will drive governance, operating rhythms, and proactive engagement with unions and works councils to enable transformation programs while balancing business needs with regulatory compliance.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience leading labour and employee relations at a senior level within a multi-country organisation.
• Strong expertise in works council engagement, collective consultation, and union relations.
• Proven ability to support large-scale organisational change or transformation programmes.
• Experience working closely with senior executives, legal advisors, and employee representative bodies.
• Demonstrated capability in designing governance frameworks and operating rhythms.
• Experience establishing or evolving European employee representation structures (e.g. EWC, SNB).
• Exposure to global transformation programmes and matrixed operating environments.
• Knowledge of emerging regulatory topics such as EU Pay Transparency and workforce modernisation.

Responsibilities

• Shaping and delivering national labour and employee relations strategy aligned to business priorities.
• Acting as an escalation point for complex, high-risk labour relations matters.
• Modernising employee representation approaches to support agile and effective consultation.
• Enabling transformation through proactive engagement with European representative bodies.
• Designing governance frameworks and ensuring clear reporting, risk visibility, and operating rhythm.
• Building trusted relationships with unions, works councils, and external partners.
• Contributing to capability building across the European LR/ER community.

Skills

Labour relations leadership

Works council engagement

Union relations

Organisational change

Executive collaboration

Governance design

European representation

EU regulatory trends

Transformation programmes

Job description

You will play a key role in shaping and delivering Sage’s European labour and employee relations strategy at a national level, ensuring regulatory compliance while enabling business agility, transformation, and growth.

Working at the intersection of people, business, and regulation, you’ll help modernise how we engage with employee representative bodies, including works councils and trade unions. You’ll act as a trusted adviser to senior leaders, helping to reduce risk while enabling transformation programmes across priority European markets.

Overview of the team

The Global Labour Relations team sits within the People Function and provides enterprise-level leadership, strategy, and execution for labour relations, trade unions, and works councils across Sage’s European footprint.

This role forms part of a centralised Global Labour Relations capability, designed to consolidate expertise, reduce regional burden, and ensure a consistent, proactive, and compliant approach to engagement.

Barcelona, Spain

Hybrid Working - 3 days per week in our Barcelona office and 2 days from home.

What we are looking for?

You’ll bring deep expertise in labour and employee relations within a complex, multi-country European environment, along with the ability to operate at both strategic and operational levels.

Experience and skills you’ll bring:

• Extensive experience leading labour and employee relations at a senior level within a multi-country organisation.
• Strong expertise in works council engagement, collective consultation, and union relations.
• Proven ability to support large-scale organisational change or transformation programmes.
• Experience working closely with senior executives, legal advisors, and employee representative bodies.
• Demonstrated capability in designing governance frameworks and operating rhythms.
• Experience establishing or evolving European employee representation structures. (e.g. EWC, SNB)
• Exposure to global transformation programmes and matrixed operating environments.
• Knowledge of emerging regulatory topics such as EU Pay Transparency and workforce modernisation.

What you’ll be doing:

• Shaping and delivering national labour and employee relations strategy aligned to business priorities.
• Acting as an escalation point for complex, high-risk labour relations matters.
• Modernising employee representation approaches to support agile and effective consultation.
• Enabling transformation through proactive engagement with European representative bodies.
• Designing governance frameworks and ensuring clear reporting, risk visibility, and operating rhythm.Building trusted relationships with unions, works councils, and external partners.
• Contributing to capability building across the European LR/ER community.

What’s in it for you?

At Sage, we offer you an environment where you can grow professionally without compromising your personal well‑being. Our benefits package is designed to provide stability, flexibility, and balance:

• Flexible benefits: exchange part of your salary and make tax savings on meal and transport vouchers, childcare, and training.
• Medical and dental insurance: Fully funded medical and dental insurance.
• Well‑being: Free access to the Calm app (for up to 5 users), 24/7 counseling, and emotional support from our Healthy Mind Coaches. We also offer self‑care and parenting resources through the Cleo app.
• Flexible working: flexibility of working one hour in, one hour out, shortened workdays on Fridays and during the summer, and the opportunity to work from over 40 countries for up to
• 10 weeks per year through our Work Away program.
• Annual leave: 23 working days of vacation, 5 paid days per year for volunteering, and 5 additional paid days annually for personal or professional development.
• Extended leave: 7 extra days of maternity leave and 5 extra days of paternity leave, on top of the legal allowance, available after one year of service.
• Financial support: Life and disability insurance, salary advances of up to 3.5 times your net monthly pay, a €300 net marriage bonus, and access to Sage's employee stock purchase plan at a discounted rate.

Health and Safety Responsibilities

• Fostering the safety culture, by leading with your own example.
• Following established safety procedures and reporting potential hazards promptly helps maintain a secure and efficient workplace.
• Participating in safety training sessions and adhering to preventive guidelines and procedures, the objective is minimizing risks and protecting yourself and the rest of your colleagues.