Head of HR operations & business partnering

HEAD OF HR OPERATIONS & BUSINESS PARTNERING

Department: Human Resources

Duty Station: Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (with travel throughout Central Asia)

Reports to: Director of Human Resources

Deadline: 16 November (applications will be reviewed when received)

Summary of Position

The Head of HR Operations & Business Partnering is responsible for ensuring that UCA provides high-quality, responsive and reliable HR services across the institution, while developing a proactive HR business-partnering model that enables managers to lead and manage their people effectively.

A central purpose of the role is to strengthen managers' confidence and capability in leading and managing people, ensuring that they receive timely, practical and professionally sound HR advice while retaining accountability for their management decisions.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

2. Principal Accountabilities

2.1 HR Operations and Service Delivery

• Lead UCA's HR operations across locations, ensuring consistent, timely and professional service delivery.
• Establish clear service standards, responsibilities, workflows and escalation arrangements.
• Ensure effective administration of the employee lifecycle, including appointments, contracts, employment changes, probation, leave, transfers and exits.
• Ensure accurate, complete and secure employment records and documentation.
• Standardise and simplify HR processes while maintaining appropriate legal, policy and control requirements.
• Develop a service culture characterised by accessibility, responsiveness, fairness, professional judgement and constructive problem-solving, ensuring that managers and employees receive clear, timely and respectful support.
• Monitor service performance and drive continuous improvement.

2.2 HR Business Partnering and Manager Support

• Develop and lead a modest HR Business Partnering model for UCA supporting academic units, campuses and professional functions.
• Ensure HR Business Partners understand the strategy, workforce, operating environment and people challenges, of the areas they support and build trusted relationships with their leaders.
• Work proactively with managers on workforce and workload planning, organisational design and change, capability, performance and other people matters.
• Provide managers with advice and support on people-related matters, promoting early identification and effective resolution of employee issues.
• Use workforce evidence and organisational insight to move HR from reactive case handling towards anticipatory support for institutional priorities.

2.3 Employee Relations and Case Management

• Lead UCA's operational approach to employee relations, providing managers with timely and professionally sound advice on performance, conduct, grievances, absence, workplace conflict and employment policy.
• Ensure effective end-to-end coordination and procedural management of disciplinary, grievance, performance and other employee-relations cases, with clear ownership of decisions, appropriate documentation, agreed timelines, active follow-up and formal closure.
• Maintain oversight of active cases and escalate undue delay, non-compliance, procedural concerns or significant institutional risk to the Director of HR.
• Work with Legal and other specialist colleagues where matters involve significant legal, safeguarding, ethical or institutional risk.
• Build the employee-relations capability of HR staff and managers and use recurring themes from cases to identify opportunities for systemic improvement.

5. Person Specification

The successful candidate will be an experienced HR leader combining strong operational discipline with strong professional judgement and a genuine business-partnering orientation. They will be comfortable moving between systems, processes and data on the one hand and complex conversations with senior managers and employees on the other.

Essential

• Substantial professional HR experience, including significant responsibility for HR operations, business partnering and/or employee relations.
• Demonstrated experience of leading and developing an HR team.
• Strong track record of building credible relationships with senior managers and providing pragmatic, professionally robust HR advice.
• Significant employee-relations and case-management experience.
• Experience of improving HR processes, service standards and operational controls.
• Strong experience of HR information systems, workforce data and management reporting, with analytical capability and attention to detail.
• Sound understanding of performance management.
• Ability to understand and operate across relevant employment-law and regulatory frameworks; multi-jurisdiction experience would be particularly valuable.
• Ability to distinguish between issues requiring specialist expertise, managerial action and institutional escalation.
• Excellent communication, influencing, coaching and relationship-building skills.
• High standards of judgement, discretion, integrity and confidentiality.
• Ability to work effectively across cultures, professional groups and geographically distributed teams.
• Commitment to UCA's mission and willingness to work across its locations.
• English is required. Fluency in Russian is required.
• Knowledge of a Central Asian language (Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Tajik) is desirable.

Highly desirable

• Professional HR qualification and/or relevant postgraduate qualification.
• Experience of establishing or substantially improving an HR Business Partnering model.
• Experience in a university, international organisation or other complex professional environment.
• Experience of organisational restructuring or significant institutional change.
• Sound working knowledge of employment legislation and HR regulatory requirements, with practical experience applying employment law in at least one relevant jurisdiction.
• Knowledge of employment practice in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and/or Kazakhstan is highly desirable.
• Experience of strengthening payroll interfaces, HR controls or audit readiness.

How to Apply:

Please submit your application (cover letter, CV and contact information of three references) by 16 November 2026.

Applications will be reviewed when received. Early applications are strongly encouraged.