People Experience Business Partner

Xero is a beautiful, easy-to-use platform that helps small businesses and their accounting and bookkeeping advisors grow and thrive. 

At Xero, our purpose is to make life better for people in small business, their advisors, and communities around the world. This purpose sits at the centre of everything we do. We support our people to do the best work of their lives so that they can help small businesses succeed through better tools, information and connections. Because when they succeed they make a difference, and when millions of small businesses are making a difference, the world is a more beautiful place.

How you’ll make an impact

As a People Experience (PX) Business Partner you will work in a true partnership model, creating and driving strategic people initiatives for a global/business portfolio in Xero and being the primary support to relevant senior leaders and leadership teams.  You will work with your PX colleagues across all our regions and centres of excellence teams, to drive the success of our PX OKRs and strategic people programs.  You will do this by ensuring consistent and impactful people programs are rolled out effectively, aligned to the global people strategy.

This role will also incorporate a broad spectrum of HR advisory responsibility, including advice and support to senior leaders on all people matters.

What you’ll do

• Provide coaching and generalist PX support to senior leaders across a global portfolio with a strong focus towards people capability, leadership and organisational design

• Communicate our people strategy and position on issues with credibility and influence

• Participate in team planning sessions across your portfolio to be the voice of People Experience and to provide advice on how the people strategy aligns with business strategy

• Play a pivotal role in managing and resolving complex employee issues

• Provide meaningful and accurate HR advice and guidance across the full spectrum of HR; including strategic alignment,  legislative requirements, recruitment, on-boarding, performance management, organisational design, employee development, change management, remuneration, HR systems, benefits, retention and departures.

• Play a role in driving forward key people programs & initiatives such as succession planning, career development, performance management and recruiting strategies; ensuring the portfolio leadership teams have visibility and understanding; embedding new programs within teams; working with PX CoEs to iterate & improve on programs & initiatives 

• In collaboration with senior stakeholders, analyse trends and metrics to develop and execute on a strategic people plan for your portfolios 

• In partnership with the Talent & Finance teams along with senior leaders, contribute to workforce planning efforts to ensure your portfolio has the needed skills & experience to deliver; ensure recruitment priorities are met In partnership with the OD team, develop programmes that support the ongoing professional development of your stakeholder group

• Provide remuneration advice and guidance, guiding the Annual Salary Review process for your portfolio

• Identify and take action on coaching opportunities, sharing uncomfortable information in a clear and helpful manner when required, engaging in challenging conversations with stakeholders and team members 

• Support and coach PX Advisors as they provide support within your portfolio on a particular case or initiative and when other opportunities arise (ie they seek mentoring from BP)

• Collaborate with the PX leadership team as required on PXP initiatives and participate in global PX projects and working groups, as needed

• Build a positive employee experience that leads to improved business performance and increased levels of  customer engagement

• Strive to work across the function to test, experiment and improve how we work inline with our scaling and evolution 

Success looks like

• You are viewed as a Trusted Advisor among the portfolio leadership team you sit on.

• The reputation of the People function at Xero is well regarded through the provision of high quality, timely, credible and accurate HR advice

• Strategic people plan is developed in line with PX OKRs and company strategy, and is executed with progress made against key measures

• Top talent is retained through programmes and initiatives coordinated and managed by the people team 

• Xero meets employment legislative compliance requirements at all times

• Organisational Design is robust and consistent with Xero Global structure

• Effective working relationships with the Global People Experience team

• People are treated with dignity and respect at all times

What you’ll bring with you

Critical capabilities

• Business insight - Understands industry trends and developments, discusses and helps embed potential implications of any changes with our teams and Xero. 

• Collaborates -  Ensures that stakeholders remain well informed and are across the right information at the right time. 

• Plans and aligns - Effectively aligns own plans with that of the broader PX team and of their portfolio.  Balances the need to plan, with the need to deliver value, working with the mindset of progress over perfection in order to deliver at pace. Foresees risks, resolves problems and delays. Ensures swift progress.

• Ensures accountability - Keeps close track of own performance, delivering meaningful impact in their role. Readily takes ownership of challenging or difficult tasks; identifies issues and drives improvement in a timely manner. 

• Strategic mindset - Applies a commercial mindset to make educated and skilful judgement calls, whilst minimising risk for the business. Clearly identifies which efforts and initiatives will have the greatest strategic impact Xero and prioritises these. 

• Communicates effectively -  Delivers highly complex information in a polished, precise, and compelling manner. Is able to influence all levels of stakeholder through these communications. 

• Manages complexity - Looks at complex issues from many angles in order to deeply understand the issue. Evaluates a range of options and their implications to gain a clear understanding of the impact of each alternative, making sound recommendations to senior stakeholders, where possible based on data. 

• Instills trust - Is honest and straightforward when working with others; shares uncomfortable information in a clear and helpful manner. Honours agreements and commitments while managing competing priorities.

Experience

• Proven experience in a fast paced Business Partnering role, covering the broad generalist spectrum of HR along with partnering with senior leaders and leadership teams, ideally in a mid-large size global SaaS company

• Exposure to a complex / global environment

• Deep understanding  of multiple HR  disciplines, including remuneration practices, employee relations, diversity, performance management, and employment legislation

• Experience leading and managing significant change programmes

• Senior stakeholder management experience with the ability to influence senior leaders and quickly develop credibility and trust

• Experience working with and coaching senior stakeholders on complex people issues

• Experience building or reinforcing  a high performance culture 

Why Xero? 

Offering very generous paid leave to use however you’d like (plus statutory holidays!), dedicated paid leave to care for your physical and mental wellbeing as well as an Employee Assistance Program to access mental health care for you and your family, free medical insurance, wellbeing and sports programmes, employee resource groups, 26 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, beautiful offices, flexible working, career development, and many other benefits that reflect our human value, you’ll do the best work of your life at Xero.