Senior Manager, HR Services

Position title:    Senior Manager, HR Services
Contract type / duration:    5-year fixed-term contract 
Location:    Geneva
Department:    Human Resources
Team:    HR Operations
Reports To:    Head, HR Operations & Strategic Projects
N° of positions supervised (if applicable):    2 
Career Step:    4

1. About the Role

The Senior Manager, HR Services leads the HR Services team to deliver high-quality, customer-oriented employee lifecycle services and ensure operational HR excellence across onboarding, changes, and exits. The role is accountable for optimising lifecycle service delivery (quality, consistency, timeliness) for a complement of ca. 450 staff members, acting as the primary escalation point for employee service requests, and continuously improving the employee experience through simplified processes, clear SOPs and effective service communications.

The role also owns operational HR data management and the production of routine operational reporting in alignment with defined reporting frameworks, and provides validated operational inputs into HR performance reporting. 

2. Key Responsibilities

Employee lifecycle service delivery

• Ensure employee lifecycle services, including payroll and benefits administration, are delivered efficiently, consistently and with a strong service mindset (onboarding, changes, offboarding), including accurate and timely processing of HR transactions and documentation. 
• Proactively diagnose service risks and structure inefficiencies across the lifecycle, design and implement operational improvements that reduce cycle times, eliminate recurring pain points, and streamline handoffs in collaboration with relevant HR stakeholders and system owners.
• Maintain robust service controls to ensure compliant and auditable processing of lifecycle events and personnel documentation. 
• Serve as the point of escalation for complex or sensitive employee service requests that cannot be resolved at first line; ensure timely resolution, appropriate documentation, and clear communications back to the employee. 
• Support HRIS enhancements: Provide business requirements, user feedback, and UAT support for HRIS enhancements led by the People Analytics, Data Governance & HRIS Analyst (system owner).

• Lead the HR Services team: prioritise workload, coach and develop staff, ensure resilience/coverage and consistent service quality. 
• Manage HR Services budget within delegated authority and ensure cost-effective service delivery. 

• Accountable for the operational performance and service continuity of vendors and service providers, including payroll and benefits providers; negotiate on service performance expectations and escalate delivery issues to avoid service disruption
• Conduct regular structured service reviews with providers, and driving timely resolution of issues before they affect service delivery to employees

• Own operational HR data management standards for employee lifecycle records (accuracy, completeness, timeliness) and implement routine data quality checks and remediation.
• Maintain operational discipline for staff files and personnel documentation, ensuring completeness, traceability, and compliance with storage and access controls requirements. 
• Produce and quality-check routine HR Services operational reports and dashboards in line with defined reporting frameworks, definitions and standards. 
• Provide validated operational inputs (e.g., lifecycle volumes, service performance indicators, data quality indicators) into consolidated HR performance packs owned by HR Strategic Services.

• Accountable for the design, maintenance and governance of the HR Services SOP library for lifecycle operations: create, maintain version control, run periodic reviews, and ensure SOPs reflect approved policies and current system configurations. 
• Ensure operational adoption of SOPs across the HR services team through coaching, spot-checks, reinforcement, and maintain an auditable SOP governance cadence that demonstrates compliance and continuous refinement. 

• Contribute to improving employee experience across lifecycle moments (e.g., onboarding clarity, request responsiveness, offboarding smoothness) through service design improvements, clearer communications, and simplified operational workflows. 
• Establish and run a customer feedback mechanism (voice-of-customer) to identify service improvements and track follow-through on agreed actions, in line with wider employee engagement initiatives.

3. Your Experience and Skills 

Education and qualifications:

Academic qualifications

• University degree in Human Resources Management or related field.

Professional experience

• 7–10 years of HR experience with at least 5 years of HR operations/service delivery exposure in an international environment, including management of payroll and benefits.
• Demonstrated people management experience and a track record of building and leading a high-performing service team. 
• Strong experience with HR systems and operational data integrity routines; experience producing operational HR reporting. 
• Experience developing, maintaining and driving adoption of SOPs/operational guidance within a team. 

• Customer-centric service leadership; ability to optimise service delivery while balancing policy compliance, employee experience and operational risk. 
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to drive alignment across a multicultural environment at all levels. 
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills; able to identify service bottlenecks and implement pragmatic improvements. 
• Bring an innovation and continuous improvement mindset and foster a learning culture in the team , with continuous feedback, retrospectives and knowledge sharing to strengthen employee experience
• High digital proficiency (Excel, HRIS reporting extracts; Power BI as an asset). 

• Fluent English required; French an asset. 

• Initiative and proactivity: anticipates service risks and improvement opportunities; acts early rather than reacting late. 
• Attention to detail: consistently accurate data handling and documentation discipline in a sensitive HR context. 
• Follow-through and completion: drives tasks to closure, ensures handoffs are completed and verified, and confirms outcomes including employee communication and documentation.
• Strong oral and written communication skills, able to communicate service performance, operational risks, capacity constraints, and improvement plans clearly to HR leadership and relevant stakeholders, adapting messaging and level of detail to technical and non-technical audiences.