Job description

The Associate HR Business Partner at GEMS Corporate Office in Dubai supports the HRBP to build an effective partnership with education leaders, aligning People & Organisation (P&O) deliverables with business objectives across assigned school clusters. The role executes talent identification and succession planning, maintains records for talent initiatives including 9-box grids, leadership databases and talent pipelines, supports internal talent branding and attraction strategies, and maintains up-to-date HR cluster dashboards with action plans. It advocates efficient performance management across all staff categories and partners with the HRBP on PDP implementation for the cluster. In recruitment and retention, the role ensures school leadership hiring aligns with internal talent mapping and external pipelining, maintains a central record of key vacancies, facilitates the annual intentions process, analyses exit trends to inform retention and recruitment strategies, and conducts periodic quality assurance on exit processes. In culture and employee relations, it coordinates climate survey actions, promotes staff wellness and wellbeing initiatives, represents core values across people initiatives, and supports the HRBP in managing employee issues, whistleblower reports, and implementing GEMS separation, grievance and discipline policies. For HR operations and compliance, it liaises with the GR team on employment law and regulatory expectations, ensures employee reconciliations are performed by schools, drives Safer Recruitment policy compliance across the GEMS MENASA network, conducts safer recruitment audits with findings analysis and action plans, and builds knowledge of legal requirements for day-to-day employee management and P&O policies to reduce legal risk. In reporting and data analytics, the role owns HR data for assigned cluster(s), improves and maintains data quality, and supports HR automation projects in collaboration with ERP, data analytics and HR projects teams, while adhering to safeguarding requirements including UK-enhanced DBS or equivalent police checks.