Drive the elevation

• $168,000 - $179,200 inc. super
• Permanent Full-time
• Sydney/hybrid

What’s the brief?

A privately owned, growth-stage professional services business is entering its next phase of evolution. With a national footprint, this established SME is shifting to a more structured and specialised operating model. The focus is on strengthening commercial performance and capability depth, not simply increasing headcount.

This newly elevated People and Culture Manager role has been created to take the function from solid foundations to scalable, future-ready capability.

You will own the People and Culture remit end-to-end, partnering closely with a senior leader and the broader leadership cohort to embed frameworks, lift capability and bring greater consistency and commercial alignment to people practices - all while keeping the human experience front and centre.

Is this your perfect match?

This will suit a People and Culture leader who brings both fresh thinking and strong foundations. You’ve operated at Manager or Senior BP level in a 50 to 250 person business and you’re comfortable being the go-to HR voice without layers around you.

You believe great structure and great culture are not opposites. You love building frameworks, capability pathways and performance rhythms - but you design them through a human-centred lens so they actually work in real life, not just on paper. You know the law, you respect governance and you manage risk with confidence, yet you’re equally energised by better employee experiences, smarter ways of working and creating environments where people can do their best work.

You influence through credibility and curiosity rather than hierarchy. You bring ideas, but you read the room. You protect what makes a culture special while helping it evolve. If you’re commercially sharp, people-first and excited by shaping something meaningful rather than maintaining the status quo, this will feel like the right stretch.

Your role in action:

• Shape and execute a 6 to 12 month People and Culture roadmap aligned to growth
• Embed and operationalise an existing competency framework
• Build capability pathways and introduce structured L&D rhythms
• Formalise performance, probation and governance processes
• Partner with leaders to strengthen accountability and consistency
• Uplift HRIS utilisation including workflows, reporting and performance functionality
• Introduce more intentional workforce planning as technology and automation reshape role design
• Support a small volume of recruitment activity, primarily early career hires

What you bring to the table

• 8 to 12 years People and Culture or HR experience
• A genuine commitment to human-centred practice and employee experience design
• Strong generalist grounding across ER, performance and governance
• Experience embedding frameworks in scaling or maturing businesses
• Exposure to workforce planning and organisational design thinking
• Commercial acumen and comfort aligning people strategy to growth targets
• Confidence partnering with senior leaders in a non-corporate environment
• Experience optimising an HRIS beyond basic compliance use
• A mature, grounded style that respects legacy while introducing evolution