Employee Relations Specialist

The Employment Equity & Labour Relations Specialist is a critical strategic and operational role responsible for driving the company’s Employment Equity (EE), transformation, and labour relations agenda across a highly regulated, unionised, and operationally complex oil and energy environment.

This role requires a highly analytical HR professional with deep expertise in South African labour legislation, employment equity governance, workforce analytics, industrial relations, and organisational risk management. The successful incumbent will partner closely with business leaders, HR, legal, unions, and operational stakeholders to proactively manage labour risk, strengthen transformation outcomes, ensure legislative compliance, and enable a high-performance culture.

A key requirement of the role is exceptional capability in HR and workforce data analytics. The incumbent must be able to interpret complex workforce trends, identify organisational risks, develop predictive insights, and translate data into commercially sound labour and transformation strategies.

This role operates at both strategic and operational levels and requires a resilient, credible, and highly influential professional capable of navigating complex employee relations environments with confidence and sound judgement.

Key Responsibilities (but not limited to):

Employment Equity & Transformation

• Lead the development, implementation, monitoring, and reporting of the company’s Employment Equity strategy and EE Plan in alignment with business objectives and legislative requirements.

• Ensure full compliance with the Employment Equity Act, Labour Relations Act, BCEA, Skills Development Act, and relevant transformation legislation.

• Manage all Employment Equity Committee structures, engagements, consultations, and governance processes across the business.

• Prepare and submit annual EE reports (EEA2 & EEA4) accurately and within statutory deadlines.

• Drive workforce transformation initiatives aligned to organisational targets, succession planning, critical skills pipelines, and diversity objectives.

• Analyse workforce demographics, talent movement, recruitment trends, promotion activity, and attrition data to identify transformation risks and opportunities.

• Provide strategic guidance to leadership on EE targets, barriers to equity, workforce planning, and legally defensible decision-making.

• Partner with recruitment and business leadership teams to ensure equitable and compliant hiring practices.

Labour Relations & Industrial Relations

• Serve as the company’s subject matter expert on labour relations, employee relations, and industrial relations matters.

• Manage complex disciplinary, grievance, incapacity, poor performance, and misconduct processes from initiation through to outcome.

• Provide strategic labour risk advice to management and HR stakeholders across operational and corporate environments.

• Represent the company in CCMA, bargaining council, and Labour Court preparation processes where required.

• Support collective bargaining engagements, union consultations, organisational restructuring processes, and operational change initiatives.

• Lead and coordinate labour relations activities relating to strikes, disputes, operational disruptions, and workforce conflict management.

• Ensure procedural and substantive fairness across all employee relations interventions.

• Develop and implement proactive labour relations strategies to minimise organisational risk and strengthen workplace stability.

• Conduct trend analysis on disciplinary cases, grievances, absenteeism, industrial action, and employee relations hotspots to identify systemic risks and improvement opportunities.

Workforce Insights

• Own and drive analytics relating to workforce demographics, labour relations trends, EE performance, organisational risk, and people metrics.

• Develop executive-level reporting packs, and workforce insights for EXCO, HR leadership, and operational stakeholders.

• Translate complex workforce data into meaningful business insights and actionable recommendations.

• Monitor and analyse key indicators including:

  • EE progress and workforce representation

  • Labour relations trends

  • Disciplinary outcomes

  • Attrition and retention risk

  • Recruitment conversion trends

  • Absenteeism and leave trends

  • Organisational capability gaps

  • Workforce planning metrics

• Identify predictive trends and provide proactive recommendations to mitigate operational and labour-related risks.

• Drive data integrity and governance across HR systems and reporting structures.

Stakeholder Engagement & Governance

• Build strong relationships with unions, management, HRBPs, legal teams, operational leadership, and external stakeholders.

• Influence senior stakeholders through commercially sound, data-driven recommendations.

• Support organisational transformation, restructuring, and operational change initiatives from an employee relations and governance perspective.

• Develop and deliver labour relations and EE training to managers and leadership teams.

• Ensure governance, confidentiality, and compliance across all employee relations and transformation activities.

People Management

• Operates as a specialist individual contributor role with significant influence across HR, leadership, and operational teams.

• Provides coaching, guidance, and labour relations support to HRBPs, line managers, and leadership teams across the business.

• Enables leadership capability through training and support on:

  • Labour relations processes

  • Employment Equity compliance

  • Performance management

  • Incapacity management

  • Disciplinary and grievance handling

  • Managing unionised environments

• Drives accountability amongst leaders for transformation, employee relations, and governance outcomes.

• Supports the broader HR team in embedding a high-performance, legally compliant, and values-driven culture.

• May oversee external service providers, labour consultants, or project resources where required.

Financial Management

• Supports the business in minimising financial exposure associated with labour disputes, CCMA matters, litigation, industrial action, and non-compliance penalties.

• Monitors and identifies labour-related financial risks through workforce analytics and employee relations trend analysis.

• Provides data-driven insights to support workforce planning, organisational design, and transformation decision-making.

• Supports cost optimisation through proactive labour relations interventions and reduced organisational risk.

• Manages budgets associated with:

  • CCMA and legal matters

  • External labour consultants

  • Transformation initiatives

  • Training and capability building interventions

• Ensures governance and compliance in all labour and transformation-related expenditure.

Key Internal Stakeholders

• Executive Leadership Team

• HR Business Partners

• HR Operations & Talent Teams

• Line Management & Operational Leadership

• Legal & Compliance Teams

• Finance Teams

• Payroll & Reward Teams

• Transformation & Employment Equity Committees

• SHEQ / Operational Excellence Teams

• Internal Audit & Governance Functions

Key External Stakeholders

• Trade Unions & Employee Representative Bodies

• CCMA

• Bargaining Councils

• Department of Employment and Labour

• External Legal Counsel

• Labour Consultants

• Psychologists / Occupational Health Practitioners

• Recruitment & Assessment Partners

• Industry Bodies & Regulatory Authorities

• External Training Providers

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resources, Industrial Psychology, Labour Law, Industrial Relations, or related field.

• Postgraduate qualification in Labour Law, Employee Relations, or HR Management advantageous.

• Minimum 7–10 years’ experience in a specialist Employee Relations and Employment Equity role within a unionised and operationally complex environment.

• Strong experience within oil & gas, energy, mining, manufacturing, petrochemical, logistics, or heavy industrial sectors preferred.

• Extensive working knowledge of:

  • Labour Relations Act

  • Employment Equity Act

  • BCEA

  • Skills Development legislation

  • CCMA processes

  • Collective bargaining environments

• Advanced capability in HR analytics, workforce reporting, and data interpretation.

• Strong systems capability across HRIS platforms, workforce reporting tools, and advanced Excel.

• Experience preparing executive-level reporting and workforce insights.

Application deadline:

22 June 2026