Group Head - Reward

About the Role
The company is seeking an outstanding Group Head - Rewards to lead the organisation's Total Rewards, Performance Management, and Workforce Planning functions. This role is vital in ensuring competitive reward practices, effective performance frameworks, and workforce strategies that support business objectives, talent needs, and organisational growth.

As the leading education group in Abu Dhabi, the company provides inclusive and innovative learning that inspires and empowers communities. With a range of educational brands for learners from nursery through adult education, we offer the broadest choice of curricula across the largest number of locations in Abu Dhabi. Our education network aims to empower the next generation to shape our future while directly supporting the educational priorities of the Abu Dhabi Government, guided by the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030.

Responsibilities
Main Duties

• Define and lead Group reward, performance, workforce planning and organisation design strategies, aligned with business objectives, growth and financial sustainability.
• Oversee Total Reward, including salary structures, benefits, allowances, recognition and incentive programmes, ensuring competitiveness, equity and affordability.
• Lead executive remuneration and short- and long-term incentive design, providing recommendations to the CPO, Executive Leadership and relevant Board committees.
• Own job evaluation, grading and job architecture frameworks, ensuring consistency in role scope, accountability and organisational impact.
• Lead the Group performance management framework, including objective setting, reviews, calibration and moderation, and ensure clear alignment between performance and reward.
• Lead strategic workforce planning, translating business plans into workforce requirements, capabilities, staffing models and manpower budgets.
• Drive workforce productivity and cost efficiency through capacity analysis, scenario modelling and workforce insights.
• Lead organisation design and restructuring, advising on operating models, structures, spans of control, management layers and accountabilities.
• Oversee workforce analytics and market benchmarking, providing insights on pay, performance, headcount, manpower costs and organisational effectiveness.
• Ensure compliance with applicable compensation and benefits regulations and provide leadership, coaching and capability development to the Total Reward team.

Specific Duties

• Ensure regular benchmarking and market related pay research is undertaken when necessary to enable the company to remain competitive and an employer of choice for UAE nationals and expatriates.
• Provide recommendations to management for improvement in reward, performance management and workforce planning related processes and policies. Collaborate with other functions in People & Culture teams, leaders, managers, and other key stakeholders on all reward, performance management, and workforce planning related matters.
• Guide, supervise and develop the reward team.
• Take overall leadership of benefits including medical and life insurance programmes.
• Review, redesign and leadership of compensation and benefits policy, process, and philosophy, including off-cycle review and adjustments.
• Overlook the annual company bonus program.
• Ensure employee benefits remain competitive with market practices and recommend enhancements where appropriate.
• Responsible to conduct annual salary comparisons within the educational sector and review, create and maintain policies and processes on all reward, performance management, and workforce planning areas in consultation with the Chief People Officer.
• Advise on industry-related best practice for total reward, performance management, and workforce planning processes.
• Act as Senior P&C leader and provide insights and support to the Chief People Officer.
• Assist in setting up the annual P&C Departmental KPIs and ensure individual team KPIs are relevant to the same.
• Lead and continuously improve the organisation's performance management framework, including goal setting, performance reviews, calibration processes, and performance governance.
• Provide expert advice to the leadership on annual remuneration processes, ensuring fairness and alignment with the reward strategy.
• Lead and review the annual insurance policy renewal alongside key stakeholders.
• Lead scalable reward, performance management, and workforce planning initiatives, from conception and design through project planning, implementation, documentation, measurement, and continuous improvement.
• Drive strategic workforce planning activities, including workforce analysis, organisational capability reviews, talent forecasting, succession planning, and organisational design initiatives.
• Partner with business leaders to assess current and future workforce requirements and develop plans to address capability and resource needs.
• Be data-driven and evaluate the effectiveness of reward, performance and workforce strategies with data analysis and effectively communicate results and findings back to leadership.
• Manage multiple projects simultaneously, balancing strategic and operational priorities while working collaboratively and independently to successfully execute project objectives and related tasks with internal and external resources as necessary.
• Provide expert coaching, consultation, and facilitation to leaders and managers on reward, performance, and workforce-related matters.
• Define and implement a strategic approach to HR data analytics for HR and the business, ensuring the provision of Strategic HR management information and performance data, including reward and benefits audits.
• Keep abreast of external market trends and ensure the HR systems are compliant with data protection principles and related legislation.
• Foster and maintain relationships with other external professional bodies, advisers, consultants and benchmarking providers.
• Any other duties as reasonably expected.

Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications

• Preferred: Currently pursuing or completed a globally recognised HR qualification (e.g., CIPD or SHRM) and/or WorldatWork certification.
• Desired: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in HR, Business, Finance or a related discipline, with formal study in reward where applicable.
• Formal training in job evaluation, compensation and benefits benchmarking.

Minimum Experience

• Essential: Senior HR leadership experience (Senior Manager level or above) within an organisation of 1,000+ employees, with direct team leadership.
• 5+ years’ experience in reward, or 7+ years’ generalist HR experience with strong expertise in reward, performance management and workforce planning.
• Proven experience in job evaluation using a recognised methodology (e.g., Hay, WTW).
• Experience across generalist HR, with a specialist focus on reward and strong understanding of performance management and workforce planning.
• Proven experience leading company-wide compensation and benefits reviews, performance management initiatives, and workforce planning programmes, including implementation of recommendations.
• Experience developing and managing multi-layer incentive, reward and recognition programmes as part of an overarching Total Reward strategy.
• Hands-on experience with compensation benchmarking, pay analysis and company-wide reward reviews.
• Experience managing company bonus and incentive programmes.
• Strong experience partnering with senior leaders in complex, matrix organisations, including workforce planning and organisational effectiveness.
• Experience working across the Middle East is desirable, with UAE experience preferred.
• Experience managing UAE employee benefits and insurance programmes.
• Experience within education or other service-related sectors is preferred.
• Demonstrated career progression and stability, with experience operating at a senior HR level in complex organisations.
• Demonstrable commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion.

Job Specific Knowledge & Skills

• Excellent English communication, presentation and relationship-building skills, with the ability to communicate complex reward, performance and workforce matters clearly to diverse stakeholders.
• Strong business acumen and understanding of organisational structures, roles, workforce requirements and performance expectations across corporate and school environments.
• Advanced Excel, analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to analyse reward, performance and workforce data and translate insights into actionable recommendations.
• Proven track record of designing, implementing and sustaining high-impact reward, performance management and workforce planning initiatives.
• Strong organisational and project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple complex priorities and deliver initiatives within deadlines.
• Strong judgement, commercial awareness and decision-making skills, with the ability to assess complex and ambiguous situations and recommend practical solutions.
• Highly collaborative and proactive, with the ability to work independently and effectively across cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrated ability to build trust through credibility, integrity, confidentiality and strong stakeholder management.
• Experience working with external reward, compensation and benefits consultants.
• Flexible, adaptable and results-oriented, with the ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced and changing environment.
• Comfortable working autonomously while maintaining strong professional relationships and acting in the best interests of the organisation.

What We Offer

• An attractive remuneration package.
• A family of world-class, child-centered, and innovative schools based in the UAE, educating over 38,000 students across our group.
• Emphasis on professional development, coaching and training, as we grow together.