Senior HR Manager at Vestates Limited

Role purpose

• Lead Vestates’ people strategy and the HR function across the Group. You will combine strategic HR leadership with hands-on delivery: designing talent and organisational solutions, ensuring legal compliance, strengthening culture and employee experience, and managing the HR team and operations across subsidiaries.

Responsibilities
Strategic HR & Leadership:

• Lead annual and rolling workforce planning cycles, mapping and recommending hiring, redeployment or automation solutions.
• Define a multi-year people strategy that aligns with Group growth plans and subsidiary priorities, with measurable milestones and budget implications.
• Design organisational structures and role families that support scalability, clarity of decision rights, and efficient reporting lines.
• Lead major change initiatives such as restructures, mergers, new business launches, preparing impact assessments, communication plans and transition support.
• Use people analytics to surface trends such as turnover, employee engagement and translate them into targeted interventions.
• Coach the executive team on people risks and opportunities.

Talent Acquisition & Mobility:

• Own end-to-end recruitment strategy for senior and mission-critical roles, including talent mapping, headhunting and panel selection processes.
• Build and maintain talent pools to reduce time-to-hire for specialist roles.
• Define employer-brand propositions to attract passive talent.
• Implement mobility frameworks and job rotation programmes to increase internal mobility and fill skill gaps across subsidiaries.
• Continuously set and review selection standards, competency frameworks, assessment tools, and scoring matrices and train hiring panels to ensure consistency and fairness.

Performance, Rewards & Development:

• Design and oversee a merit-based performance management cycle linked to clear KPIs, and behavioural competencies.
• Develop compensation and benefits frameworks that balance market competitiveness, internal equity and cost control.
• Create leadership development pathways and high-potential programmes to build succession pipelines and reduce external hiring for senior roles.
• Oversee annual compensation reviews and align rewards with business performance and employee retention goals.
• Work closely with Snr. Management to monitor ROI for L&D spend and iterate programmes based on skills gaps and business metrics.

Employee Relations (ER), Compliance and Risk Management:

• Maintain up-to-date compliance with Nigerian labour law and statutory obligations, advising management on contract terms, tax/WHT and regulatory filings.
• Design and own formal ER processes investigations, disciplinary, grievance, appeals, ensuring procedural fairness and robust recordkeeping.
• Lead or oversee complex investigations and provide independent recommendations to leadership with legal counsel as needed.
• Conduct periodic HR audits to identify risk, contracts, payroll, benefits, file management, and implement remediation plans.
• Draft and review HR policies, ensuring clarity, legal compliance and alignment with company culture.
• Provide proactive advice on industrial relations strategy and employee engagement to reduce litigation and reputational risk.

People Operations and HR Technology:

• Oversee HRIS strategy, ensuring accurate data flows between HR, payroll and finance systems and driving automation of manual HR processes.
• Define and deliver key HR reports and dashboards: vacancy pipeline, turnover, headcount, diversity, engagement for leadership review.
• Ensure timely and accurate payroll inputs, statutory contributions and benefits administration through a strong governance process.
• Implement process improvements for employee onboarding and offboarding to improve employee experience.
• Safeguard employee data privacy and compliance with data protection requirements.

Team and Stakeholder Management:

• Line-manage and coach the HR team, setting clear objectives, development plans and performance expectations.
• Build HR capability across the business through manager trainings, toolkits and advisory clinics.
• Serve as the HR representative in the senior management team, influencing strategy and acting as the escalation point for people issues.
• Partner with external legal, tax and HR consultancies to access specialist advice when required.
• Promote a collaborative HR culture focused on service, continuous improvement and data-driven decisions.
• Represent Vestates in external HR forums and networks to benchmark practices and source talent.

Experience & qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration or related field; Master’s degree preferred.
• Minimum 8 years progressive HR experience with at least 3 years in senior HR leadership roles.
• Proven track record in multi-site or multi-subsidiary HR operations, ideally with exposure to the real estate, hospitality or services sectors.
• Strong working knowledge of Nigerian labour law, statutory obligations, and HR compliance requirements.
• Practical experience with HRIS, payroll systems and people analytics; comfortable working with data to inform decisions.
• Professional HR certification desirable (CIPD, SHRM-SCP, SPHR) and excellent stakeholder management, communication and coaching skills

Behavioural Competencies:

• Anticipates organisational needs and proactively aligns people strategies with business goals.
• Maintains discretion and trust, particularly in sensitive HR matters.
• Demonstrates sensitivity and fairness in managing employee concerns.
• Inspires confidence across all levels; mentors and empowers the HR team.
• Balances analytical rigour with sound judgment under pressure.
• Adapts effectively in changing business and cultural contexts.

Technical Competencies;

• Advanced knowledge of Nigerian labour law and global HR best practices.
• Proficiency in HRIS, payroll, data analytics, and Microsoft Office Suite.
• Expertise in strategic workforce planning and succession management.
• Proven ability to design and execute total rewards and performance frameworks.
• Strong grounding in organisational design and change management.

Working Environment:

• Full-time, onsite role based in Abuja
• Fast-paced and evolving business environment with multiple portfolios
• Requires balancing strategic oversight with hands-on involvement.
• Collaborative, transparent culture emphasising open communication and accountability.

Salary
N700,000 - N800,000 per month.