Head of People

Posted: 22/11/2024

Closing Date: 31/01/2025

Job Type: Temporary

Location: Macquarie

Job Category: People & Culture

**Our Purpose and Ambition**

NextSense is a not-for-profit organisation supporting people with vision or hearing loss across Australia. We work with children, adults, and their families, providing a holistic approach to hearing services for newborns through to people over 90 years old, and helping children who are blind or have low vision to develop the right skills, mobility, and independence to confidently explore their world.

NextSense has been breaking boundaries since 1860, and we’ve been expanding our services ever since. Today, we deliver world-class education (both to children with sensory loss and to professionals in the field), cochlear implants, allied health services, therapy, research, and clinical services to children and adults. We’re a registered NDIS provider, working with our clients to achieve their own goals and potential.

We’re committed to research and innovation; harnessing the latest technologies and new ways of thinking and educating the next generation to lead the way in hearing and vision services.

We are currently creating a world-leading centre for innovation on-site at Macquarie University that represents a new era for hearing and vision loss. This nationally significant social infrastructure project will be a place to nurture, trial and share new ideas and form new partnerships that will drive better outcomes for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind or have low vision.

**The Role**

NextSense has a rare and exciting opportunity for the role of Head of People and Culture, offering a full-time temporary 12-month contract commencing in February 2025. Reporting into the Director of People and Governance and leading a team of business partners and one coordinator, this role is based at our new offices at Macquarie University.

Providing a proactive, efficient, results oriented end to end human resources (HR) service to the organisation, the HR service model operates with the end user in mind driving a quality employee experience. The primary purpose of the role is to contribute to the development of new and improvement of existing, HR policies, systems and practices and be responsible for ensuring timely, efficient and accurate delivery of HR advice and support to the business. Our People and Culture vision critically aligns with the organisational business strategy to organise, mobilise, optimise and develop the workforce to succeed, perform and evolve.

The People & Culture team have been key drivers of transformational change with the support of executive leadership. In 2025 there are various key projects including a strong focus is on evolving our ways of working towards a network model, cultural transformation initiatives to attract and retain the best staff, in addition to entering re-negotiation of our Enterprise Agreement.

Key role responsibilities include:

- Assist the Director of People and Governance in the planning, development and management of the HR function including strategy and design.
- Lead the People and Culture Team to successfully deliver on all HR activities of the employee lifecycle using best practice and deliver exceptional manager support.
- Execute strategic project work as outlined by Director of People and Governance in alignment with organisational strategy.
- Work in partnership with the Head of Organisational Development to support the development of an employee development framework, including leading performance management and embedding data led decisions on performance optimisation.
- Implement change initiatives within function and organisational wide as directed.
- Work in partnership with the Head of Organisational Development to drive leadership development initiatives across the organisation including building and enhancing capability in people managers across the organisation in addition to identifying talent pipeline leveraging available programs.
- Ensure the organisation complies with legislative requirements in IR and child protection and meet best practice industry standards.
- Working in partnership with the Head of Organisational Development to support the Director of People and Governance to develop strategies to enhance employee engagement, staff attraction and retention program, enhance and build organisational culture, and job satisfaction.
- Provide expert interpretation and advice around established policies, employment instruments, enterprise agreements and modern awards and ensure consistency of advice and practices across the People and Culture Team.
- Strengthen and support the People and Culture Team to build strong internal relationships and support managers with professional, commercially astute and timely HR advice.
- Support investigation of any grievances with relevant manager, address employee concerns and grievances or any other employee issues and foster a positive work enviro