International Human Resources Manager (IHRM)

About HALO:

HALO is the leading global NGO addressing the impact and drivers of conflict in 30 countries and territories, with over 8,000 staff. Most of our staff are local employees and include a growing number of women.

Our primary duty is to serve people affected by conflict, clearing landmines and the explosive remnants of war that threaten lives and livelihoods long after fighting has finished. We make land safe where war has ended, while also assisting those affected by active conflict and endemic violence.

HALO addresses human suffering caused by armed violence in some of the world’s most fragile places, securing weapons and ammunition and working with both state and community actors to reduce the prevalence of armed violence.

HALO’s work in Angola focuses on reducing the impact of landmines and explosive remnants of war, improving safety, enabling access to land, and supporting long-term recovery and development.

About the role:

The International HR Manager (IHRM) sits within HR Programmes and is the primary HR point of contact for a portfolio of HALO's international programmes, providing hands-on, pragmatic HR partnering to programme and regional leadership. The role has a strong people-development and workforce-risk focus — employee relations, safeguarding, learning and development, talent and succession, and recruitment — translating global HR policy into locally compliant, operationally realistic practice across diverse, often high-risk, jurisdictions.

This is a delivery-focused partnering role working closely with regional management, the Safeguarding team, Safety & Security, and the wider global HR team to ensure national and expatriate staff are supported, developed, and protected by consistent, fair, and legally sound HR practice.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS ROLE IS BASED FULL TIME IN ANGOLA, AND CANNOT BE CONDUCTED REMOTELY

Responsibilities:

Partnering

• Act as the trusted HR advisor to assigned Programme Managers and senior regional leadership, providing pragmatic, risk-aware guidance.
• Build strong working relationships with in-country HR/admin focal points, providing coaching, capability building, and day-to-day support.
• Translate global people strategy and policy into locally appropriate practice, balancing HALO-wide consistency with local labour law and context.
• Support programme leadership through organisational change, restructures, and workforce planning linked to funding cycles and donor requirements.
• Ensure clear and consistent two-way communication between programme teams and relevant HR stakeholders, escalating issues where appropriate and maintaining awareness of programme developments and dependencies.

Employee Relations

• Own case management and reporting for employee relations matters across assigned programmes that fall in the local jurisdiction — disciplinary, grievance, performance, and capability — ensuring fair process, local legal compliance, and consistent documentation.
• Monitor and interpret local labour law across assigned country, working with local counsel/advisors where required, and flag compliance risk to the Head of HR Programmes.
• Coach and upskill managers to handle routine ER matters confidently and consistently, escalating complex or sensitive cases appropriately.
• Maintain and localise HR policies, contracts, and handbooks in line with both HALO global standards and in-country statutory requirements.
• Support employee relations matters for expatriate staff as required, either within your own region, or other regions as assigned by the HQ ER Triage team.

Safeguarding

• Act as a key HR point of contact for safeguarding concerns within assigned programmes, working closely with the Safeguarding team on case handling, investigations, and outcomes.
• Ensure safeguarding policy, codes of conduct, and reporting mechanisms are understood and consistently applied across programme countries, including for national staff and community-facing roles.
• Support the delivery of safeguarding induction and refresher training for staff and managers.
• Contribute to a strong speak-up culture and ensure safeguarding risk is factored into recruitment, onboarding, and exit processes.

Learning & Development

• Identify capability gaps across assigned programmes and work with managers regarding training requirements and development plans.
• Support rollout of HALO-wide L&D initiatives at programme level, adapting content and delivery for local context, language, and access constraints.
• Champion a consistent approach to induction, onboarding, and role-specific training across programme countries.
• Track and report on L&D activity and impact to support programme and organisational reporting requirements.

Talent & Succession

• Partner with programme leadership to identify critical roles and single points of failure, building practical succession plans appropriate to a field-based, often hard-to-recruit-for environment.
• Support talent identification and development including pathways.
• Contribute to performance management cycles, using outputs to inform talent, development, and succession conversations.
• Support retention planning for critical and hard-to-fill roles, balancing donor funding constraints with workforce stability.

Recruitment

• Partner with programmes on national and expatriate recruitment, ensuring safe, fair, and timely hiring aligned to funding and operational timelines.
• Embed safeguarding-safe recruitment practice throughout the hiring process, including referencing, vetting, and background checks appropriate to child- and community-facing roles.
• Support workforce planning for new project mobilisation, internal mobility (including placement policy rotations), donor-funded contract changes, and demobilisation/downsizing where required.
• Build local hiring manager capability in fair, consistent, and compliant recruitment and selection practice.

Data, Systems & Duty of Care

• Ensure accurate and timely HR data is appropriately shared, supporting reporting to donors and senior leadership.
• Support duty-of-care processes for staff deployed to insecure or remote locations, working closely with Safety & Security.
• Contribute to employee engagement, wellbeing, and retention initiatives tailored to the realities of humanitarian field operations.

General:

• Uphold HALO’s core values and standards, promoting its ethos and mission statement.
• Ensure familiarity with and adherence to all HALO policies and procedures, especially the code of conduct and safeguarding.

Requirements

• CIPD qualified (or equivalent), or substantial demonstrable generalist HR partnering experience.
• Proven experience as an HR Business Partner or senior generalist HR advisor in an international, multi-country organisation — NGO, humanitarian, or international business.
• Strong track record managing employee relations casework, including complex or sensitive cases, to resolution in a multi-jurisdictional setting.
• Experience handling safeguarding concerns or working closely with a Safeguarding function, including sensitivity to survivor-centred and confidential case handling.
• Experience designing or delivering learning and development activity for a geographically dispersed, culturally diverse workforce.
• Experience supporting talent, succession, or performance management processes, ideally in hard-to-recruit-for or field-based contexts.
• Experience managing recruitment across multiple countries, including safer recruitment practice.
• Working knowledge of employment law and HR practice across multiple jurisdictions, and comfort operating where local legal frameworks are inconsistent or under-developed.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the confidence and credibility to advise senior programme leadership remotely and in person.
• Resilience and cultural sensitivity to work with, and travel to, teams in fragile, conflict-affected, or post-conflict states.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; comfortable producing clear policy, correspondence, and guidance for a non-HR audience.
• Willingness and medical fitness to travel internationally, including to insecure environments, in line with HALO's security protocols.

Desirable:

• Fluent in Portuguese or a desire to learn
• Experience within the demining, humanitarian mine action, or wider INGO/development sector.
• Formal safeguarding training or qualification, or experience leading safeguarding investigations.
• Experience building succession or talent frameworks from scratch in a resource-constrained environment.
• Exposure to donor-funded programme environments and the HR implications of grant-based funding cycles.
• Experience with HRIS platforms supporting L&D or talent modules.

Other Requirements:

• Satisfactory security clearance/vetting and medical clearance for travel to HALO programme locations.
• Ability to obtain right to work in the country of employment.

Travel Requirements:

• Regular – The IHRM will be expected to visit all HALO locations including Bie and Mavinga as well as trips to the operational camps.

Benefits

• Monthly living overseas allowance (LOA)
• Free accommodation in a rented HALO apartment or house
• 49 days annual leave per year, increasing to 56 days after 2 years’ service.
• Three economy return flights to the member’s official home address
• Private medical health insurance
• Insurance package: life assurance and emergency medical insurance, including evacuation and repatriation.