HR Director, Employee Relations

ROLE & RESPONSIBILITIES

• ER Strategy and Governance: Define ER strategy with clear governance, escalation pathways, and RACI; ensure alignment with global HR strategy and full compliance with Chinese labor laws. Provide quarterly ER risk maps and remediation updates to the HRVP and GM.
• Policy and Process Management: Lead the design, review, and simplification of HR policies and processes to ensure legal compliance and ethical consistency.
• Leadership of Major and Complex Cases: lead or assign senior case leads for high-sensitivity, cross-SET, or litigation-related cases (e.g., fraud, bullying/harassment, sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, management misconduct, conflicts of interest), engaging directly with the GM, business leaders, Legal, and Compliance. Ensure evidence-based, traceable decisions and documentation.
• Investigations and Disciplinary Management: Own ER investigation standards, and the disciplinary actions policy and end-to-end process, ensuring proportionality, consistency, and robust review/appeal handling.
• Organizational change and optimization: Serve as ER lead for large-scale organizational change and optimization, designing solutions and risk mitigations. Lead consultations with the labor union/employee representatives, ensuring legal compliance, minimizing disputes and reputational risk.
• Legal Disputes and Arbitration: Partner with Legal to manage labor arbitration and litigation, develop case strategies and evidence chains, and define settlement standards. Build pre-dispute prevention and settlement guidance; maintain a case library and trends analysis.
• Compliance and Internal Controls: Co-develop methods with Compliance to embed compliance KPIs in people processes (hiring, performance, promotion, rewards, exit). Conduct rolling ER audits and sample checks; issue corrective action plans and drive closure.
• Manager and HR Capability Building: Design and deliver ER capability frameworks and tiered training for HRBPs and line managers. Use certification and practice assessments to improve consistency of case handling.
• Labor Union and Employee Representative Engagement: Partner with the labor union on policy consultation, collective agreement optimization, and ER management.
• Culture and Employee Voice: Co-drive inclusion and diversity and Speak My Mind initiatives, with targeted interventions and measurable outcomes. Own pulse survey scoping and close-the-loop actions, converting insights into specific management improvements.
• Crisis and Issue Management: Establish ER incident response playbooks and escalation protocols. Act as incident special project lead to ensure fast, compliant, and consistent organizational responses.
• Data and Insights: Build ER data governance and dashboards (case taxonomy, cycle time, recurrence rates, disciplinary consistency, compliance KPIs). Use analytics to prioritize prevention, training, and policy iteration.
• Continuous Improvement and Benchmarking: Conduct market benchmarking; drive process digitization (e.g., case management systems, COI declaration platform), simplification, and efficiency. Provide regular trends and recommendations to leadership.

REQUIREMENTS

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree or above in Human Resources, Law, Business Administration, or related fields.
• 10+ years in Employee Relations or HRBP, with proven experience handling complex, cross-site cases and change programs.
• Experience in multinational companies in China and direct engagement with the GM is strongly preferred.

Legal and Compliance: Deep knowledge of Chinese labor law, relevant regulations, and judicial practice; strong ability to translate legal requirements into executable policies and processes.

Case and Disciplinary Management: Expertise in independent investigations, evidence management, disciplinary decision-making, and appeal/ grievance handling; hands-on experience in arbitration/litigation strategy and execution.

Organizational Change and Program Leadership: Track record as the ER lead in redundancies, restructuring, PMI, and externalization projects, with clear risk control, stakeholder management, and results delivery.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Effective partnership with Legal, Compliance, Finance, business leadership, and the labor union; ability to balance legal risk, business impact, and cultural values under various scenarios.

Data and Communication: Strong analytics and insight capability; concise, fact-based executive communication and influence in both English and Chinese; adept at internal and external communications during crises and sensitive issues.

Personal Qualities: High ethical standards and principled judgment; fairness and respect. Resilient and composed under uncertainty and risk; results-oriented with continuous improvement mindset; combines human empathy with objective perspective.

AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics. We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorisation and employment eligibility verification requirements.