Senior Manager Employee Relations (Business Banking)

Absa Group; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 600 000 - 800 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial services group in South Africa seeks an Employee Relations Manager to promote effective employee relations within Business Banking. The role involves guiding management on ER policies, ensuring a high-performance culture, and managing conflict and grievances. Candidates should have at least 8 years of management experience, a relevant degree, and strong communication skills. The position is crucial for maintaining legal compliance and fostering a collaborative environment across the business.

Responsibilities

• Guide and support management, employees, and People teams in applying ER policies.
• Enable a fair, respectful, diverse and high-performance culture.
• Conduct ER audits and provide assurance of proper implementation of ER policies.
• Monitor and coordinate disciplinary and grievance cases across the cluster.

Skills

Management level experience

Strong commercial acumen

Legal/employee relations background

Effective communication

Compliance with ethics and values

CCMA experience

Education

Post Graduate Diploma/Bachelor's Degree (NQF 8) in Business/Commerce/Management

Legal qualification (advantageous)

Job description

Overview

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time. With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Job Summary

Promote effective employment relations by guiding, advising, and supporting line management, employees, and People teams in applying Employee Relations (ER) policies and procedures within Business Banking. Enable a fair, respectful, diverse and high-performance culture while being a trusted subject matter expert that draws external and internal insights to advance and create knowledge that benefit the management of People.

Key Accountabilities

Accountability: Strategy Input, Direction & Assurance

• Provide fact-based inputs and insights into the development of the Cluster ER strategy.
• Give direction on the application of ER policies & procedures to managers.
• Conduct ER audits in the cluster.
• Provide assurance of the proper implementation of ER policies & procedures within the cluster
• Identify and suggest initiatives for the improvement of ER Practices in the cluster.
• Identify and implement positive employee relations programs, in consultation with the relevant stakeholder groups, that will lead to a more efficient and motivated workforce.
• Ensure ER policies and processes are current, conform to employment legislation and, where appropriate, are coherent with other government departments’ practices.

Accountability: Capability Building

• Identify capability gaps in consultation with the People Partners and develop or source relevant solutions to close the gaps
• Conduct training programmes to improve the capabilities of Line Managers and People Partners.
• Track cases, identify trends and implement solutions to ensure efficient case management across the cluster.
• Participate and influence the community of practice

Accountability: Consulting & Advisory Services

• Monitor and Coordinate all Disciplinary, Capability and Grievance cases across the cluster.
• Provide advice to Line Managers on complex, advanced and high-risk cases on the appropriateness and fair application of relevant procedures intervention regarding misconduct, operational requirements and incapacity, encompassing inter alia:
• Suspension, disciplinary charge formulation, and disciplinary investigations, procedural and administrative requirements for employees and/or exceptional cases that have potential reputational risk.
• Manage in conjunction with the Employment Legal Team all disputes that involve employees and/or on cases that have potential of reputational risk.
• Escalate all cases not actioned by the respective case managers and follow up on cases that have stagnated to the relevant Cluster Heads.
• Guide the people change of cluster restructures, including redeployment and redundancy and ensure that these are completed within timescales and budgets. Ensure that the appropriate ER support mechanisms are in place for staff and line managers.
• Participate in group wide projects
• Represent Business Banking at external forums such as the CCMA

Accountability: Generation of MI and Management of Risk

• Coordinate all cluster reporting on ER and provide input into monthly, quarterly and annual reports.
• Analyse all ER related MI and share insights and propose solutions
• Understand and remedy all ER related risks identified by the People Risk unit
• Understand and remedy all ER related audit findings identified by Internal audit
• Create case records on the ER system and maintain the accuracy thereof.

Accountability: Collective Engagements & Stakeholder Management

• Participate in the consultation engagements with our recognized trade union
• Periodic vetting of business cases to be presented to trade unions
• Interact with counterparts in the industry to share information, engender cooperation and gain a common understanding of the threats and risks.
• Build and maintain relationships with the Business Banking People Partners to ensure that their co-operation can be obtained when required for key investigations.
• Ensure that there is adequate support and evidence collection activities for cases dealt with by Employment Legal and Litigation Teams.
• Represent the company externally at the CCMA where and when required

Qualifications

• Post Graduate Diploma/Bachelors Degree (NQF 8) – Business/Commerce/Management Practice
• Legal qualification (advantageous)

Knowledge, Skills And Experience

• 8+ years’ experience in a similar role at Management level in a large corporate
• Strong commercial acumen
• Solid legal/employee relations background
• Excellent and effective communication (written/verbal)
• Adheres to high standards of ethics and values
• Solid CCMA experience

Education

Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.

Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised