Head of People DACH

Location: This is a hybrid role, with c. 3 days per week based in our Frankfurt office, ability to work remotely, and some travel to other DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) locations and elsewhere in Europe, with notice 

Contract Type: Permanent

The Opportunity

This is a senior, People leadership role for an experienced HR leader operating at enterprise level, who thrives at the intersection of business strategy and people outcomes.

As Head of People for DACH, you will set and deliver the People strategy across Germany, Austria and Switzerland, partnering closely with senior leaders to enable growth, transformation and performance.  You will also be accountable for ensuring operational HR processes, policies and systems are designed and delivered in line with local cultural and legislative requirements.

As the senior People authority for DACH, you will act as the definitive expert on German labour law, employee relations and co‑determination, ensuring business leaders fully understand what is possible, what is not, and how to navigate complex regulatory and works council environments effectively.

Reporting to the VP People, EMEA, with a strong matrix connection into the DACH MD, you will lead a high‑performing People team of c.9 FTE in DACH, and act as a core member of both the EMEA people leadership team and the DACH business leadership team.

What You Will Be Doing

• Shape and deliver the DACH People Plan, fully aligned to EMEA and Group strategy, ensuring measurable commercial impact
• Act as a trusted partner to senior leaders, influencing business strategy, transformation, and organisational design
• Act as a strong, credible voice for the DACH markets within a UK‑headquartered organisation, constructively challenging assumptions and repeatedly articulating local legal, cultural and employee relations constraints to influence sustainable decisions
• Build a high‑performing, inclusive culture with the right capabilities, capacity and leadership for today and the future
• Lead and develop a multi‑country People team, strengthening succession, capability and engagement
• Drive workforce planning, talent management, succession and leadership development across the market
• Lead change initiatives, including organisational redesign, restructures and M&A activity from a People perspective
• Own employee relations at a senior level, including strong, constructive engagement with works councils
• Ensure excellent operational delivery across payroll, reward, compliance and people policies in line with global frameworks and local legislation
• Champion the global People operating model and partner effectively with Centres of Expertise, Shared Services, and HR Technology and Analytics teams.

What You’ll Bring

• Extensive senior HR leadership experience, including strategic partnering with executive teams in Germany
• Deep experience working with works councils and leading complex organisational change in the DACH region
• Strong commercial acumen, with a proven track record of aligning People strategy to business performance and demonstrating measurable outcomes
• Demonstrated ability to lead, coach and inspire multi‑country, geographically dispersed teams
• Proven experience operating effectively in a global, matrixed organisation, ideally with a headquarters in UK or US
• Excellent influencing, coaching and stakeholder management skills at senior level
• Data‑driven mindset with the ability to translate data and insight into action
• A positive, pragmatic mindset with high personal resilience; comfortable operating in complex, sometimes constrained environments where influence, persistence and clarity are essential to progress
• Fluent German and English

This role will suit a highly experienced HR leader who is deeply grounded in German employment law and employee relations, enjoys operating as the subject‑matter expert, and is energised by influencing senior stakeholders across borders. Success in this role requires the confidence to say “no”, the skill to explain “why”, and the resilience to do so consistently in a global, matrixed environment.

We Are RS

We’ve been solving industry problems for over 80 years. We turn the ‘what ifs’ into the ‘why nots’, the impossible into the possible.

Our purpose? Making amazing happen for a better world.

We offer service and product solutions to over 1.2 million customers globally, shipping a parcel every 2 seconds to over 130 countries. With over 800,000 stocked and 3 million unstocked products, we’re a trusted partner to the world’s leading industries.

We’re looking for curious, driven, and empathetic professionals to join our journey. People who think differently, act with purpose, and want to make a real impact. 

Rewards

Our Reward Strategy Philosophy is designed to offer market competitive base salaries and provide all of our people the opportunity to participate in a short-term incentive, enabling them to share in the success of the Company.

Our total reward package is more than just the cash; our recognition and benefit offering provide the opportunity for us to recognise, reward and enable the wellbeing of our people at all stages of their journey with RS. Our rewards and benefits vary by country, but include:

• Financial - pension/retirement plan after the probation period; accident insurance; VWL; Phantom-share-program
• Wellbeing - 30 holidays, employee assistance programme; highly engaged ERGs-Employee Resource Groups
• Lifestyle - transportation assistance schemes (company car or car allowance, bike lease option); Edenred card Euro 50 per month plus an annual birthday gift of Euro 60
• Spotlight – our global recognition programme provides a platform to highlight and recognise people role modelling our values

Ready to Make Amazing Happen?

Join c. 9,000 colleagues around the globe and help us shape the future of our industry. Whoever you are, wherever you are — it all starts here.

Apply now and make RS a part of your journey.

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