Senior People and Capability Manager [T500-25590]

About Officeworks:

Officeworks’ purpose is “we bring big ideas to life at low prices”. We are Australia’s leading omnichannel retailer of complete technology solutions, stationery, furniture, art supplies, and learning resources. We also offer services including Print & Create and Geeks2U. We begin with customers—our products and services provide solutions to our diverse range of customers across Australia, from households, students, small to large-sized businesses, governments, and schools.

About the People Function:

Our People team exists to enable business growth by building a newly created high-performing, inclusive, and scalable workforce with the capabilities required to meet evolving business needs. As part of our GCC, the People team will play a pivotal role in shaping HR practices that support global outcomes while deeply understanding local talent needs.

These roles are best suited for people who enjoy:

• Partnering with the business to align people strategy with commercial priorities, adding value by enabling execution of the broader business strategy
• Working closely with global stakeholders while having the autonomy to build fit-for-purpose solutions, driving transformation initiatives that support our employees and leaders
• Being hands-on with the opportunity to contribute building from the ground up establishing foundations, embedding global best practice, and influencing the local people experience
• The ability to translate global frameworks into locally relevant solutions.

Why this role exists:

This role leads the People agenda for Officeworks’ Bengaluru operations, ensuring the foundations, leadership support and employee experience are in place as Officeworks establishes and grows its presence in India. This role plays a critical part in building a high-performing, people-centred and compliant environment from the ground up.

As the local People lead, this role connects Officeworks’ People strategy with local execution. It ensures global consistency where it matters, while shaping locally relevant practices that reflect the Indian market. Working closely with stakeholders across India and Australia, the role helps embed Officeworks’ culture, strengthen leadership capability, and enable sustainable business growth in the region.

This role plays a critical role in shaping how Officeworks’ culture is experienced in Bengaluru. It ensures that as the operation scales, values and ways of working are embedded in a way that is both globally consistent and locally effective. It leads and establishes the people foundations, leadership support and operating rhythms required to attract, integrate and retain talent, and to deliver enterprise people programs with quality and consistency.

Where you will make a difference:

In this role you will:

Establish the Bengaluru People Foundations:

• Establish the people foundations required to support a compliant and effective Global Capability Centre in Bengaluru, including HR processes, documentation, systems and local practices.
• Partner with the wider People team and relevant vendors to ensure people practices align with local employment requirements and Officeworks standards.
• Identify and mitigate people-related risks associated with establishing and growing a new office site.
• Lead change management activities to support workforce transition, communication and adoption of new processes.
• Act as a strategic HR advisor to the Bengaluru leadership team, providing guidance on organizational design and workforce planning.

Deliver Recruitment, Onboarding, and Talent Support:

• Partner with Talent Acquisition to support attraction, recruitment, hiring and retention strategies in the local market.
• Lead local recruitment activity and support selection processes to ensure roles are filled with the right talent in a timely and cost-effective way.
• Deliver an engaging onboarding and induction experience for new Bengaluru team members to support integration into Officeworks.
• Support talent and succession activities, including workforce planning and future capability thinking.

Embed Culture, Engagement, and People Programs:

• Embed Officeworks’ culture, values and ways of working into local practices and team member experiences.
• Drive the rollout of People Experience initiatives including culture, engagement, diversity and belonging, workplace and capability programs.
• Build employee engagement mechanisms including communication channels, feedback loops and recognition approaches.
• Monitor employee engagement metrics and provide actionable insights to continuously improve local team culture and retention.

Partner with Leaders on People Priorities:

• Partner with leaders to deliver the people strategy locally and support initiatives that enhance business outcomes and people experience.
• Coach and support leaders through key people lifecycle activities including performance, development, engagement, remuneration and employee relations.
• Provide insights to leaders based on people data and local trends to support decision-making and leadership capability.

Manage Compliance, Safety, and People Operations:

• Support the implementation of workplace health, safety and wellbeing practices for the Bengaluru office, including emergency procedures, first aid capability, fire safety and incident reporting.
• Support, coach and manage employee and industrial relations matters in a fair, consistent and risk-aware way.
• Support the creation of foundational People operations processes including onboarding, payroll inputs, employee records management and annual people cycle activities.
• Develop documentation, workflows and guidance to support effective and consistent HR service delivery.
• Ensure compliance with local labor laws, regulations, and statutory reporting requirements, in partnership with legal and the CPO in Australia.

Who you will be working with:

In this role, you will:

• Work closely with other People and Capability Managers, as well as the People Leadership team (PLT), including Head of People Partnering, Head of People Advisory and Operations, and Head of People Capability & Experience.
• Collaborate with the wider People team, including centers of excellence such as Remuneration, People Advisory, and Payroll.
• Support senior leaders, including the Officeworks Leadership team (OLT) and broader senior leadership groups.
• Partner with all leaders across the region as the local People contact.
• Liaise with external stakeholders including Global Capability Centre support providers, ANSR HR service and operations team, facilities, vendors and suppliers as required.

What success looks like:

• Recruitment and onboarding processes support business growth, with positive new starter integration outcomes and strong employee commencement experience.
• Core People operations and annual cyclical activities are delivered on time, with strong leader participation, quality inputs, and effective follow-through on agreed actions.
• Team member experience across the region reflects Officeworks’ values and ways of working, supported by inclusive practices, capable leaders and a high-performing team culture.
• Local people policies, processes, and practices are operating effectively, remain compliant, and are regularly maintained to ensure alignment with requirements and Officeworks standards.
• People leaders receive responsive, practical and effective support across key workforce matters and people lifecycle activities.
• Emerging people risks, trends, and workforce issues are identified early and managed proactively through clear reporting, stakeholder engagement, and timely action.

Qualifications and work experience:

Essential

• Tertiary qualifications in HR, Business Administration, or a related field.
• 10+ years' experience in People Partnering or HR business partnering roles, ideally across multiple geographies.
• Strong generalist HR experience, preferably in a fast-paced environment such as Retail or FMCG.
• Demonstrated experience partnering with business leaders and managing multiple stakeholder groups.
• Experience working in change, transformation or growth environments.
• Proven ability to work autonomously and manage projects end to end.
• Strong influencing, stakeholder management, communication, and problem-solving skills
• Familiarity with Microsoft Office and HR systems, including SAP SuccessFactors or similar platforms.
• Deep understanding of the Indian talent landscape, including compensation benchmarking and regional labor laws.

Preferred:

• Experience supporting the setup or growth of a new business site, shared services environment or global capability center.
• Experience working across both local and enterprise People processes in a complex organization.
• Familiarity with local India-based systems, vendors or service-delivery arrangements
• Professional HR certification (e.g. SHRM-CP, CPID, or equivalent).