Sephora
HR Manager - Retail (Middle East)
- Permanent
- Dubai, United Arab Emirates
- Experience 5 - 10 yrs
Job expiry date: 03/04/2026
Job overview
Date posted
17/02/2026
Location
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Salary
AED 20,000 - 30,000 per month
Compensation
Comprehensive package
Experience
5 - 10 yrs
Seniority
Manager
Qualification
Bachelors degree
Expiration date
03/04/2026
Job description
Sephora is seeking a senior HR Manager - Retail for the Middle East region to drive the people strategy across 50+ stores in 5 countries. The role is responsible for aligning HR initiatives with business strategic objectives, building high-performing teams, and strengthening Sephora’s culture across the retail network. The HR Manager will act as a trusted advisor to retail leaders, overseeing talent acquisition, development, and retention programs, performance management, succession planning, and organizational design. Responsibilities include managing the full employee lifecycle from onboarding to offboarding, ensuring operational excellence in HR execution, fostering employee engagement and inclusion, leveraging people analytics to influence business decisions, handling employee relations matters, and championing Sephora’s values and DEI initiatives. The role requires strategic thinking, operational leadership, and the ability to influence stakeholders across multiple levels of the organization while ensuring alignment of people strategies with commercial priorities in a fast-paced, multi-country retail environment.
Required skills
Key responsibilities
- Partner with Retail leaders, People Centers of Excellence (CoEs), and Sephora University to align people priorities with business strategic goals and organizational objectives.
- Attract, develop, and retain top retail talent, creating clear development paths, succession plans, and high-potential talent pipelines across the retail network.
- Lead performance management initiatives with clarity, accountability, and fairness, and provide coaching and guidance to ensure consistent application across all stores.
- Oversee the full employee lifecycle including recruitment, onboarding, development, performance evaluation, and offboarding, ensuring a consistent and engaging employee experience.
- Provide HR operational support, ensuring seamless execution of policies, standards, HR processes, and compliance with local labor regulations and retail procedures.
- Leverage people analytics and HR KPIs to provide actionable insights, inform business decisions, and develop targeted action plans for performance improvement and engagement.
- Serve as a culture ambassador by championing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), employee engagement, and Sephora’s core values across all retail locations.
- Handle employee relations matters, including investigations, disciplinary processes, and resolution of conflicts, with fairness, discretion, and adherence to policies.
- Develop and lead a high-performing People team that is business-savvy, trusted, and capable of delivering operational excellence and strategic HR initiatives.
- Participate in business and People reviews with Retail leadership to monitor progress, share best practices, and resolve challenges proactively.
Experience & skills
- Fluent in Arabic and experienced in HR management within the Middle East retail market.
- Proven experience as an HR leader in senior HR roles, ideally in retail or fast-paced, multi-country environments.
- Strong ability to manage large retail networks, aligning people strategies with commercial priorities and organizational objectives.
- Inclusive leader with a demonstrated ability to build, inspire, and develop diverse, high-performing teams.
- Hands-on operational leadership with capability to balance strategic planning with day-to-day HR execution.
- Skilled communicator and influencer with credibility across all organizational levels and ability to drive alignment among stakeholders.
- Proactive, analytical, and solutions-oriented with experience in change management and organizational transformation.
- Resilient and adaptable leader, thriving in dynamic, multicultural, and fast-moving environments.