People and Culture Specialist at Imagine Her, Wakiso, Uganda

Job Description

We are a local non-profit working with communities to accelerate the power and potential of women, girls, and youth as active leaders and social entrepreneurs, creating sustainable solutions within their communities. Our purpose is to accessibly provide young, vulnerable women and youth with robust innovation skills and essential resources to create sustainable social ventures and social impact in Uganda. We envision a world where Ugandan women, girls, and youth actively harness their potential by initiating and advancing innovative and sustainable solutions to pressing needs in their communities.

We work through community partnerships to target women and youth who are significantly marginalized and vulnerable due to poverty, the growing education-to-employment gap, geography, and the social constructs of gender. We implement a human-centered impact model that equips these community members with the skills to respond to their most critical challenges. The guiding principle of our model is that those we work with decide what they want to do and choose the support and resources they need to do it. We achieve this through our three programs that accelerate the power and potential of women, girls, and youth in Uganda as described below;

Social Enterprise & Innovation Program: We invest in young rural women and youth as builders of transformative solutions to the most pressing problems of today and tomorrow in climate, food security, and rural housing. We do this through the provision of practical tools and training. Our model is designed as a 3-month accelerated MBA-style training program that empowers rural women and youth to develop an idea, build a model, and test it using design thinking methodology and principles of adaptive leadership. After this, participants receive mentoring and lean start-up financial support to help them build their social ventures.

Becoming: We invest in enhancing educational outcomes and retention rates for girls in sugarcane-growing communities through a two-pronged model implemented in schools and within the community.

The school-based model improves girls’ opportunities to achieve academic excellence and develop 21st-century skills through project-based and social entrepreneurship learning. Simultaneously, it empowers rural teachers to become and excel as 21st-century educators.
The community-based model empowers girls’ caregivers and local community leaders through livelihood improvement initiatives, boosting incomes and supporting the sustainability of the girls’ education.
Career Pathway: We invest in transforming university education and experience in Uganda by equipping university semi and final-year students with skills desirable in the job market and enabling them to solve real-life and business problems through the human-centered and system thinking methodology, tailored experiential learning opportunities (company, organizational and community-based placements) and skills training in adaptive leadership, and design-driven entrepreneurship along with field expert mentorship geared towards preparing them to enter the labor market or start their and own ventures.

Our Manifesto “We are proximate leaders driving sustainable change through moral imagination and servant leadership. We are rooted to build trust and provide for active listening and human-centered participation to accelerate change in our communities. We hold every engagement through a reflective lens, driven by the opportunity to be open to many whys while being respectful and consciously proactive learners inspiring perpetual growth and impact, we help each other to overcome poverty, gender imbalances, and social injustices.”

Our Core Values
Servant leadership with delight:
We strive to serve with empathy, stewardship, and self-awareness with utmost joy
Diversity & Equity
We foster a culture of uniqueness, creativity, and understanding while being respectful of our differences.
Community
Our solutions are community-driven and owned, where members identify challenges and create innovative solutions using local resources.
Learning
We constantly seek new knowledge and resources to provide evidence-based, sustainable solutions.

Position Overview
The People & Culture Specialist will play a vital role in shaping the organizational culture while managing human resources, providing data-driven performance, and enhancing employee engagement and development. He/she will also lead the development of the organization’s standard operating procedures. This position is critical in promoting a healthy workplace environment and ensuring that the organization’s values are reflected in all aspects of our work.

Talent Management:
Lead the employee lifecycle processes, staff communication, HR best practices, and diversity initiatives to ensure a diverse, engaged, and empowered workforce.
● Lead employee lifecycle processes (recruitment process, including but not limited to job postings, candidate screenings, onboarding, and interviews).
● Coordinate employee performance review process per the organization’s cycle and all areas related to performance management.
● Provide support and resources for employee well-being, including mental health and inclusive resources.
● Build and maintain a comprehensive benefit plan.
● Staff communication management.
● Provide expert-level to leadership on HR best practices
● Develop action plans based on employee feedback to address areas for improvement.
● Ensure our workforce is diverse, engaged, and empowered.

Culture
Promote the organization’s culture;
● Develop and deliver a People and Culture Strategy in alignment with the organizational core values and vision.
● Design and lead initiatives, including research and diagnostics, to maximize the engagement of all employees and build organizational commitment to the desired culture

Compliance & Reporting
Lead the interpretation of the organization’s policies, procedures, and the country’s labour laws to employees and relevant stakeholders;
● Offering essential support to our line managers concerning labour laws, work permits, and any other team needs.
● Ensuring employee compliance with all relevant employment laws and regulations.
● Oversee the utilization and management of office assets
● Preparing and submitting required reports and documentation promptly.

Qualifications and personal qualities
● Experience working in a non-profit organization
● Proven ability to work collaboratively in a team environment
● Ability to bring innovative approaches to People & Culture practices
● Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources and any related field of study.
● Postgraduate training or master’s in Human Resources is an added advantage
● More than three years of working experience in managing human resources
● A high degree of professionalism and proven ability to deal with sensitive and confidential information
● Strong written and verbal communication skills; clear, direct, and respectful communication abilities.