Head of Human Resources and Organisational Development

About The Institute

Chartered Accountants Ireland (The Institute) is the largest and longest established accountancy body in Ireland. It has over 31,000 members and 7,000 students, and it is the leading voice of the accountancy profession in Ireland. It is a member of Chartered Accountants Worldwide and the Global Accounting Alliance. The Institute’s role is to educate, represent and support members. Members work in senior positions in practice and industry.

Institute Values

The Institute seeks to ensure an environment based on its values of Innovation with Ambition, Collaboration for Impact, Speed and Simplicity, Trust, Inclusion, and For Tomorrow, For Good. Candidates should be able to demonstrate how these may apply to them in the role for which they are applying and how their previous experience is relevant to them.

The role:

As Head of Human Resources and Organisational Development of the Institute, the task is to drive transformation across the Institute both internally and externally in close collaboration with the Chief Executive and the other functional areas of the business. The objective of this role is to develop and deliver operational, communication, engagement programmes to enable managers and leaders accelerate performance, retain key talent, and deliver on the strategic objectives of the organisation.

Additionally, the successful candidate will act as a catalyst and ambassador of the current and continued organisational transformation. Success will look like a noticeably contemporary, technology-enabled Institute to develop and maintain a high level of staff engagement, while enabling a cost efficient future prepared service organisation leading in its field.

Reporting to the CEO the successful candidate will be responsible for the following activities:

Key Responsibilities:

Develop Strategy and Framework

• Develop a HR and Organisational Development Strategy for Chartered Accountants Ireland that will contribute significantly to the ongoing Strategy of the Institute to maintaining and growing the members across all services.
• Work with the Leadership Team to design and plan a HR programme as part of the Institutes’ Strategic Planning Processes
• Develop and implement where necessary a Framework for talent acquisition and retention, internal communications, change, learning, Compensation and Benefits, health safety and welfare, CSR, and culture as part of the Organisational Transformation Programme in alignment with the Leadership Team to ensure that the Institute becomes a destination employer.
• Work with the CA Support Board where necessary to ensure the alignment of the CA Support / Thrive teams to student and member proposition.
• Where relevant take part in relevant external validation activities including accreditations and standards.

Drive Organisational Development

• Work with the Leadership Team to identify key cultural, structural, and transformational projects, the owners, resources, scope, and budget.
• Lead complex Transformation projects, working closely with the Leadership team and key stakeholders.
• Drive staff experience through process innovation and alignment to ensure a collaborative work environment across all stages of the employee life cycle.
• Provide practical formal/informal executive coaching and development in all areas of leadership, particularly in cultural creation, alignment and change management at the individual, team, and organisational level.

Drive Programme Development

• Develop detailed plans that provides transparency on progress and alignment on deliverables including planned timelines, budgets and return on investment.
• Governance, escalation and reporting to the defined management group, Chief Executive and Council
• Ensure project and program delivery against KPIs and in line with the committed budget.
• Monitor project and program variables (cost, effort, scope etc.) against plan to implement corrective or future actions.

Drive Risk Mitigation

• Define the governance for all HR related projects including those owed within the various business teams and those directly owned directly.
• Ensure an up-to-date suite of relevant HR Policies and processes.
• Identify and implement a framework across key People risk areas.
• Monitor staff compliance with Human Resources and corporate policies and procedures, provide Human Resources / corporate compliance reports, and conduct HR / corporate compliance audits.
• Ensure Health, Safety and Welfare programs are in place and adequately resourced in the organisation.

Advocacy

• Act as the Institute ambassador and advocate both within and outside the broader Institute and in relation to CSR, diversity and inclusion, life-long-learning, career professional roadmap within the Institute.
• Elevate HR best practices for wider group transformation and acknowledgement in the HR community.
• Ensure advocacy within the Institute (members, students and colleagues) in relation to Wellbeing and support.
• Provide clear articulation of the Institute values and act as a key value monitor across the leadership team and organisation.

The candidate 

Education and Experience

• Ideally master’s degree with focus on strategic HRM, Organisation Development or related areas, or equivalent combination of education and experience
• MCIPD or FCIPD
• 10+ years of in-depth experience in global organisation or comparative environment in a top tier consulting firm undergoing Digital Transformation and change/culture management.
• Experience of HR Transformation in the Education and/or publishing sector
• Experience working with stakeholders at various seniority levels as well as subject matter experts across various functions.
• Experience of managing a team of highly motivated individuals.

Soft Skills

• Excellent communication and presentations skills
• Passion for all things digital, ability to act as a digital evangelist and to bring people on a journey.
• Ability to handle ambiguity and untangle complex situations into actionable activities.
• Distinctive strategic mind-set and ability to translate a vision into tactical action plans that fit to the company.
• Highly developed leadership and interpersonal skills are required to create a motivational and supportive work environment in which employees are coached, trained, and provided with career opportunities through development.

Hard Skills

• In-depth understanding of the HR, Talent Management, Learning, Compensation and Benefits, Business Transformation Processes, Culture and Communications.
• Excellent business acumen with proven management of digital and cultural transformation
• Strong proficiency at MS-Office.

Flexible work arrangements

The Institute is seeking and encourages applications from experienced candidates who may be looking for flexible work arrangements. If such arrangements are being sought please bring these to the attention of your interviewer.

The Institute will use the information which you have provided in this form to respond to your request or process your application and will hold and protect it in accordance with the Institute's privacy statement, which explains your rights in relation to your personal data.  By submitting this application acknowledge you have read our privacy statement.

Chartered Accountants Ireland is an equal opportunities employer.

How to apply:

Please contact for further details and to send your details, Paul Marshall (paul@principalconnections.ie) with our selection partner, Principal Connections.