Country Head of People Experience – Japan

Job Description (Main jobs to be done)

• Global ‘Country People Experience’ Leadership Team Member  Key and active member of the Global ‘Country People Experience’ Leadership Team, together defining and driving the Novartis Country People Experience ambition, strategy and enterprise priorities. 

• Local P&O Accountability to the Business & External Parties
  This is the most fundamental accountability of the role and the one that distinguishes it from any purely product or operational function. The Country Head of People Experience is the single point of P&O accountability across all units in the country for local P&O practices and policies or in-country delivery of (relevant) P&O related products — to local business leaders who need P&O authority, to regulatory bodies that require a named responsible party, to external stakeholders including works councils, unions, labour inspectorates, and other government bodies, and to a P&O Workforce Strategy Head (global or local). The Country People Experience Head should support business leaders & P&O Workforce Strategy Heads, navigate these situations end to end. The Country head of People Experience will jointly assess together with the in-country P&O Workforce Strategy Head how certain local positions impact the local business strategies and execution and whether specific interventions are needed. The in-country P&O Workforce Strategy Head may lead the discussions with the local business leadership team to ensure streamlined communication to local leadership.

• Business & P&O Strategy Execution in Partnership
  The Country Head of People Experience is the execution leader of people experience strategy at the local level (covering all aspects of people experience across our key journeys and delivery of people products). And working in close partnership with Global or Local P&O Workforce Strategy Heads, to translate global business and P&O strategy into locally grounded, actionable people plans — and are accountable for the implementation and outcomes of that strategy in-country. The Country Head of People Experience also proactively engages with Local or Global P&O Workforce Strategy Heads in case he or she receives signals that business strategies are at risk due to specific execution challenges or business leader engagement. Together with the in-country P&O Workforce Strategy Head, this role co-creates the local P&O strategies that can be applied to all business units in that country. This is not advisory support to a P&O Workforce Strategy Heads; it is shared execution accountability. Where a major business initiative has people implications at country level — a new operating model, an M&A integration, an expansion into a new location, a significant headcount change — this role leads the local P&O workstream from planning through delivery.

• First Point of Contact for Country-Level P&O Escalations
  The Country Head of People Experience holds clear ownership of all P&O escalations that are country-specific in nature. Business leaders and the in-country P&O Workforce Strategy Heads do not need to navigate the global P&O structure to find the right person for a complex local matter — this role is that person. They diagnose the situation, apply local legal and regulatory expertise, coordinate with global product teams, P&O experts and Global P&O Workforce Strategy Heads where needed, and provide a clear resolution or recommendation. They ensure escalations are handled with speed, competence, and appropriate confidentiality — and that recurring patterns of escalation are fed back into product design or policy review so that systemic issues are addressed rather than repeatedly managed.

• Local Product Landing & Adoption
  The Country Head of People Experience is the primary accountability holder for how global P&O products are adopted and experienced in their country (where relevant) – for example when it comes to Rewards programs, employee benefits, payroll & time management, recruitment solutions, diversity & inclusion programs (illustrative, not exhaustive). They lead local change management for relevant P&O product launches or significant product change, building awareness, readiness, and momentum. They recruit and activate local champions — managers, employees, and team leads — who carry adoption into the organisation. They monitor adoption data, including usage of AI enabled technology, and act on it: where products are not being used or do not deliver required business outcomes / employee experience goals, they diagnose why and either address the local adoption gap or escalate a legitimate design issue to the Product Owner for improvement. In cases where there is a need for a local root cause analysis, this role is accountable to ensure end to end process fixes are put in place to avoid recurrence of the same issue.

• Local Context & Product Feedback
  This role is a critical intelligence feed for the global product teams. The Country Head of People Experience systematically gathers structured insight from employees, managers, and local P&O team members about what is working and what is creating friction in the lived experience or required business outcomes. They provide Product Owners with the local context — cultural norms, workforce composition, legal constraints, works council positions — that must inform product design and delivery.

• Compliance, Controls & Product Integrity
  The Country Head of People Experience owns compliance of global products against local legal standards. They ensure that every product is applied consistently and within the required local legal framework. Where a product cannot be applied as designed — for example where works council consultation requirements create mandatory process variations — they manage the exception with full transparency and documentation, ensuring this is the minimum necessary deviation, not a licence for broader non-compliance. They maintain the controls monitoring cadence for their country, flagging any control failures to the relevant Product Owner and Global Journey Head.

• Employee Relations & Works Council/Union Partnership
  The Country Head of People Experience is the organisation's accountable leader for all formal employee relations matters in the country. This includes works council and union relationships, collective agreement negotiations, handling of formal ER escalations, senior-level terminations, harassment and discrimination cases, and any ER matters that require legal or regulatory expertise.

• Local Legislation Advisory to P&O Workforce Strategy Heads & Business Leaders
  The Country Head of People Experience is the go-to authority on local employment law and regulatory requirements — for global and local Workforce Strategy Heads, for local business leaders, and for the wider P&O function. They advise on the country-specific legal or practice implications of workforce decisions — organisational changes, redundancies, cross-border moves, benefits structures, performance management approaches — ensuring that the business can act with confidence and without legal exposure. They do not own the strategic workforce decisions, which remain with P&O Workforce Strategy Heads and business leaders, but they own the legal and regulatory guardrails within which those decisions are made and flag proactively when strategy intentions may conflict with local law.

• Targeted Local P&O Programmes
  This role delivers specific and limited, non-standard activities that cannot be productised globally and must be designed and delivered in-country. These include local legally required initiatives, have very specific tax implications or are critical to achieve agreed business goals in that local market context, for example local employee benefits (as aligned with the P&O Workforce Strategy Heads guidance for their respective units. And the Country Head of People Experience will review the need & relevance of these programmes on a periodic basis with the aim to reduce them where possible.

• People Leadership of the Local P&O Team
  The Country Head of People Experience leads the local People Experience team and chairs the Country P&O Board. They set the direction, capability standards, and culture of the team. They ensure team members are actively connected into the global P&O product community — contributing local expertise to global product design rather than operating as a separate local function.

Skills & Knowledge (Capabilities the role requires)

Technical / Functional Capabilities:

• Local P&O Authority & Business Leadership Partnership.
  The most distinctive capability of this role. You are the trusted P&O authority for local business leaders across every dimension of the employment relationship — strategic, legal, cultural, and operational. Business leaders call you first because they know you will give them a clear, grounded, actionable perspective that reflects both business reality and local P&O expertise. You have the presence and credibility to operate as a genuine peer at the senior leadership table — not a service provider, but a strategic partner who shapes decisions. You are fluent in both English and the local language of the country you are based in.

• Strategy Translation & Local Execution Leadership.
  You take business and P&O strategy and make it real on the ground. You build country-level people plans that are specific, sequenced, and owned — and you are accountable for delivering them, not just advising on them. You work with Global and local P&O Workforce Strategy Heads as a co-execution partner, not as a downstream implementer, and you proactively identify where global strategy must be adapted to be executable locally. And you work closely with Global Product Owners and local teams to ensure P&O products deliver the right end to end experience and do not come across as highly fragmented and incoherent.

• Labor Relations & Employment Law Expertise.
  The bedrock specialist capability of this role. You are the organisation's in-country authority on employment legislation, collective agreements, and works council dynamics. You can negotiate in formal settings, advise on legal risk with confidence, and ensure that the organisation acts lawfully and fairly in every people decision. This capability cannot be standardised away — it is intrinsically local and intrinsically human.

• Escalation Handling & Judgment Under Complexity.
  You are the person who steps into difficult, ambiguous, or high-stakes situations and makes sound judgments quickly across all activities in the P&O lifecycle. You know how to triage an escalation — distinguishing between what can be resolved locally, what requires Expertise Hub or legal expertise, and what must be escalated further — and you ensure every situation is handled with appropriate urgency, discretion, and follow-through.

Leadership Capabilities:

• People Leadership & Local Team Development.
  You build a local P&O team that is connected, capable, and outward-facing — not a group of local administrators. You develop your team members' ability to engage with global products, contribute to product improvement, and operate as genuine consulting partners to local managers. You create clarity of purpose, a strong team culture, and career paths that extend into the wider P&O organisation. You also integrate specialist local expertise aligned to our global product teams (for example, in rewards, recruitment solutions, talent management etc.) into a coherent, high-performing team rather than a set of disconnected specialists.

• Stakeholder Trust Across Three Communities.
  You build and sustain trust with three distinct groups simultaneously: local business leaders and management who rely on your authority and expertise; the global P&O organisation — P&O Workforce Strategy Heads, Product Owners, Journey Leaders, and Expertise Hubs — who rely on your country intelligence and execution; and local employees, their representatives, and external parties who rely on your fairness, consistency, and integrity. Operating credibly across all three simultaneously is the defining capability tension of this role.

• Change Leadership & Adoption Driving.
  You are an expert change agent. You know how to translate a global product, policy, or business transformation into something that local managers and employees understand, believe in, and act on. You build trust before change arrives, create early adopters, celebrate visible wins, and diagnose adoption barriers quickly. You also lead the people workstream when the business is going through significant change in-country — ensuring that organizational transitions are well-managed, legally sound, and experienced as humanely as possible by the people affected. 

Work Experience

• Proven track record of local P&O experience.
  The ideal candidate has country or regional HR experience and has interacted with local leaders, influenced decisions that impacted the experience of employees in that market, and implemented people plans that drove business outcomes.

• Strong ER and labour relations spine in the relevant country or region.
  Deep expertise in employment law and formal employee relations for the specific country is non-negotiable. This includes works council management, union negotiation experience, and senior ER case handling.

• Experience translating business and P&O strategy into local execution plans.
  The candidate has worked in a global-local model where they were responsible not just for advising on strategy but for implementing it — building country-level people plans, leading local workstreams in organizational change or transformation, and being accountable for delivery against agreed outcomes. They understand what it means to be the P&O execution lead for a business initiative, not just a stakeholder.

• Experience operating in a matrixed, global-local model.
  The candidate has operated in a large, globally managed organisation where products, standards, or policies were set centrally and had to be implemented locally. They have navigated the tension between global consistency and local necessity — advocating clearly, using evidence, and earning credibility with both central teams and local leaders without becoming a bottleneck or a point of friction.

• Change management and adoption experience.
  The candidate has led significant organizational or programme change, with demonstrable evidence of driving adoption rather than just communication. They understand that change management is a craft — not a cascade — and they have built local champions, identified resistance early, and adapted their approach based on adoption data.

• Track record of building trust as a first point of contact and escalation handler.
  The candidate has been the person business leaders, works councils, and employees turn to when a situation is complex, sensitive, or legally consequential. They have a track record of handling escalations with speed and judgment, and of building the kind of trust with business leaders that means they are included early — not called in after decisions have been made

• Track record of managing diverse local teams.
  The candidate has led a small-to-medium HR team with mixed specialisms and has developed the capability of team members over time, creating a culture of continuous improvement and connection to the broader organisation.