Senior Manager, People & Culture

About this role

ABOUT VILLAGEREACH
VillageReach transforms health care delivery to reach everyone. We are driven by a vision of a world where every person has the health care they need to thrive. VillageReach’s goal is to reduce inequities in access to quality primary health care for 350 million people by 2030. We work with governments, the private sector, partners, and communities to build responsive primary health care systems that deliver health products, information, and services to the most under-reached. As a locally driven and globally connected organization, VillageReach has offices in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and the United States.

Summary
The People & Culture Manager, DRC, leads the country People & Culture function, providing strategic and operational support across talent management, employee relations, performance management, safeguarding, and HR operations. As a member of the Country Senior Management Team (SMT), the role guides people and organizational matters, ensuring compliance with labor laws and organizational standards while fostering an engaged, inclusive, and high-performing workforce. The position reports directly to the Country Director and has a matrix reporting relationship to the Director, People & Culture.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
The duties and responsibilities listed below are representative of the role and may be modified or expanded based on organizational needs.
People & Culture Partnership & Workforce Support

• Support the implementation of People & Culture strategies, initiatives, and workforce plans aligned with country program and organizational priorities.

• Serve as a key People & Culture partner to managers, guiding employee relations, performance management, workforce planning, and policy interpretation.

• Participate in Country Senior Management Team meetings and provide input on people-related matters and workforce risks.

• Support organizational change initiatives and promote a positive, inclusive, and accountable workplace culture.
Talent Acquisition & Employee Lifecycle Management

• Manage end-to-end recruitment processes, including workforce planning, sourcing, selection, onboarding, and employee transitions.

• Coordinate onboarding activities to ensure new employees are successfully integrated into the organization.

• Support employee development and talent retention initiatives, including career growth and succession planning activities.
Employee Relations & Culture

• Advise and support managers on employee relations matters, including performance concerns, disciplinary actions, conflict resolution, and workplace investigations.

• Coordinate employee engagement and wellbeing initiatives that strengthen morale, inclusion, and staff retention.

• Promote organizational values and contribute to a positive employee experience across the country program.
Performance Management & Learning

• Coordinate performance management processes and support managers in goal setting, performance reviews, and performance improvement planning.

• Identify learning and development needs and facilitate training and capacity-building opportunities for staff.
Safeguarding, Compliance & Risk Management

• Support the implementation of safeguarding and PSEA policies and assist in the management of safeguarding and employee misconduct concerns.

• Ensure compliance with DRC labor laws, organizational policies, and HR procedures.
HR Operations, Compensation & Benefits

• Oversee day-to-day HR operations, including contracts, personnel files, leave administration, employee records, and HR systems.

• Coordinate payroll inputs, benefits administration, and employee lifecycle transactions to ensure accuracy and compliance.

• Support compensation and benefits reviews and assist with the implementation of approved changes.

• Build and maintain productive relationships with external stakeholders, including labor authorities, service providers, and recruitment partners.
Team Support

• Provide day-to-day guidance and support to People & Culture staff as applicable.

• Contribute to building an efficient, responsive, and service-oriented People & Culture function.
Competencies:
VillageReach has ten (10) Organizational Competencies that describe how we work together and get things done, grouped into three strategic areas: Achieving Great Results, Setting Direction, and Bringing Others With You. For a full description, please download our Organizational Competency document.
Achieving Great Results:
1. Risk Taking and Innovation
· Key Behaviors: Comfort with ambiguity, curiosity, adaptability, unconstrained and undeterred creativity, resourcefulness.
2. Business Judgment
· Key Behaviors: Getting to root causes, understanding the environment, navigating complexity and ambiguity, and entrepreneurial energy.
3. Building Strong Teams
· Key Behaviors: Trust in Subject Matter Experts (SME’s); radical candor to resolve conflict, hold each other accountable as colleagues, focused on results, commitment to mission.
Setting Direction:
4. Compelling Communication
· Key Behaviors: Clear and evidence-based communication, audience adaptability, curious listener.
5. Resilient Self-Leadership
· Key Behaviors: Self-aware, plan how one shows up, emotionally intelligent, use one’s own agency, and take accountability.
6. Stewardship and Personal Alignment
· Key Behaviors: Take ownership, display ethical conduct, be effective at resource management, align personal objectives with organizational goals and mission, focus on continuous improvement and sustainability.
Bringing Others with You:
7. Influencing Leadership
· Key Behaviors: Cultivate trust, influence to make change, navigate the matrix structure.
8. Radical Partnership
· Key Behaviors: Share information and credit, address conflict, increase impact through collaboration, and political and contextual awareness.
9. Cultivates a Growth Mindset
· Key Behaviors: Seek out diverse input, demonstrate…