People Manager – Asia

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in South Korea.

📋 Description

• Provide direct supervision to the People Officer, facilitating their professional development, ensuring manageable workloads, and establishing clear objectives.

• Offer coaching and support to enhance skills in managing HR cases, employee relations, and systems.

• Ensure the People team consistently delivers high-quality assistance to Ember staff globally.

• Oversee the execution of employee lifecycle processes through the People Officer, ensuring that recruitment, onboarding, performance management, learning and development, and offboarding are executed smoothly and uniformly across international locations.

• Lead the adoption of digital and AI-powered tools to streamline, automate, and enhance HR processes, data management, and reporting, thereby freeing up resources for more valuable people-related work while ensuring ethical, transparent, and values-driven use of AI.

• Be accountable for employee relations outcomes, serving as a trusted advisor to managers throughout Ember and providing senior HR judgment on issues such as disciplinary and grievance cases, performance management, absence and wellbeing, and policy interpretation. The People Officer will manage routine employee relations cases, while the People Manager will offer coaching, guidance, and escalation support for more complex or sensitive matters, ensuring outcomes are fair, consistent, legally compliant, and aligned with Ember’s values.

• Proactively create systems, tools, and guidance that empower managers to handle personnel issues confidently and consistently. This includes enhancing their ability to deal with sensitive topics and supporting them in achieving fair and sustainable outcomes.

• Monitor external HR and employment law developments (especially in Asia), providing actionable recommendations to keep Ember ahead of emerging risks and opportunities.

• Own Ember’s HR policy framework, ensuring that policies are practical, user-friendly, reflect best practices, and comply with legal standards across Ember’s regions while being consistently applied in practice.

• Delegate the drafting, maintenance, and daily implementation of policies to the People Officer, offering review, sign-off, and guidance as necessary.

• Provide clear and accessible advice on HR and employment issues, with strong expertise in Asia and an understanding of global contexts.

• Oversee relationships with Employer of Record providers and other HR/benefits partners.

• Ensure HR data and records are accurate, secure, and comply with data protection regulations.

• Support the exploration of digital and AI-driven tools to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and inclusivity in HR processes while ensuring alignment with Ember’s values.

• Collaborate with the People Officer and managers to integrate Ember’s values across teams, particularly in remote and cross-cultural settings.

• Provide leadership and guidance on employee engagement, wellbeing, and retention initiatives.

• Work with managers to enhance learning and development opportunities, career pathways, and succession planning.

• Assist managers in fostering positive team cultures that align with Ember’s values, focusing on inclusion, equity, and diversity.

• Utilize HR data and feedback to identify trends and suggest improvements that enhance the employee experience.

• Collaborate closely with the Operations Manager and COO to establish Ember’s People priorities for the upcoming years, offering advice and insights grounded in evidence and HR best practices.

• Identify opportunities to simplify, enhance fairness, and improve the effectiveness of People processes, systems, and structures.

• Support organizational design and workforce planning, aiding Ember in building the necessary skills and capacity to fulfill its mission.

• Provide HR insights and analysis to senior management by gathering and interpreting HR metrics (e.g., turnover, engagement, absence, diversity) to identify risks and opportunities.

⛳️ Requirements

• A recognized mid-level HR qualification or equivalent professional experience. Examples include CIPD Level 5, SHRM-CP, PHR, IHRP-CP, CPHR, HKIHRM membership, or a relevant HR degree.

• Strong understanding of HR practices and employment law, with expertise in Asia and knowledge of global HR trends.

• Experience utilizing AI-enabled digital tools to enhance, automate, or streamline HR processes, along with an understanding of associated opportunities and risks.

• Experience handling employee relations cases, including disciplinary, grievance, absence management, and performance issues.

• Proven experience in developing and implementing HR policies and procedures.

• Established track record of line management or coaching within a People team.

• Ability to analyze HR metrics, identify trends, and provide recommendations to improve organizational effectiveness.

• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to build trust at all levels.

• High emotional intelligence, resilience, and the capability to handle sensitive matters with confidentiality and integrity.

• Strong organizational and project management abilities.

🏝️ Benefits

• We operate a nine-day fortnight, allowing our full-time staff to have every other Friday off with no reduction in pay.

• 25 days of holiday, in addition to UK bank holidays (unless local statutory minimums are higher), and for each year that you remain part of the Ember team, you will receive an additional day of holiday, up to a maximum of 5 extra days.

• Generous paid maternity and paternity leave.

• Flexible working arrangements, including options for part-time work and remote work.

• Access to a local working space can also be arranged for employees.

• Free annual eye tests.

• Access to a counselling service.

• Funding and allocated time for your training and development.

• Paid volunteer day.

• Four paid days off to facilitate low carbon travel.

• Time off to donate blood.