GPSS Assistant Manager

As an Arcadian, you already help us deliver world leading sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets. You are part of our global business comprising 34,000 people, in over 30 countries, dedicated to improving quality of life.

Everyone has an important role to play. With the power of many curious minds, together we can continue to solve the world’s most complex challenges and deliver more impact together.

Role description:

The GSSC People Services Assistant Manager supports the delivery of People shared services across assigned countries, processes, and teams within Arcadis. The role leads day to day operations, people management, service performance monitoring, and escalation handling while ensuring services are delivered in accordance with agreed quality, compliance, and service standards.

Partnering closely with the GPSS SDM, the Assistant Manager helps drive operational excellence, team development, continuous improvement, and a positive employee experience through effective service delivery, stakeholder collaboration, and process optimization.

Role accountabilities:

• Lead end-to-end delivery of People shared services across assigned countries, processes, queues, and shifts, ensuring consistent execution of services in line with agreed Service Level Agreement, quality standards, and compliance requirements.
• Oversee daily operations within People Assist and related People systems, ensuring effective case triage, workload balancing, prioritization, and timely resolution of employee and manager inquiries.
• Monitor operational performance through defined KPIs including SLA attainment, backlog management and other productivity measures, implementing corrective actions where required.
• Act as the primary escalation point for complex, sensitive, or high-impact employee cases, ensuring appropriate stakeholder engagement, risk mitigation, and satisfactory resolution.
• Help lead operational reviews and service governance discussions with in-country People teams, Communities of Practice, and key stakeholders to align priorities and address emerging business needs.
• Lead, inspire, and develop a high-performing and customer-focused team comprising Team Leaders and Specialists.
• Help lead in driving recruitment, onboarding, performance management, talent development, succession planning, and employee engagement initiatives within the team.
• Provide ongoing coaching, mentoring, and feedback to team members, fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous learning, and operational excellence.
• Establish clear development plans and career pathways to support employee growth, retention, and capability building.
• Promote an inclusive, diverse, and psychologically safe work environment that encourages innovation and continuous improvement.
• Manage workforce planning activities including shift schedules, leave coordination, contingency planning, and overall readiness.
• Utilize operational data and forecasts to assess capacity requirements and optimize staffing models across supported processes, regions, and shifts.
• Develop and maintain cross-training and multi-skilling programs to strengthen operational resilience and minimize service disruptions.
• Partner with GPSS leadership to identify future resource requirements and support strategic hiring decisions.
• Champion a customer-centric service culture focused on delivering a seamless and positive employee experience.
• Build and maintain strong working relationships with business stakeholders, regional people teams, Centers of Expertise (CoEs), Payroll, Talent Acquisition, and other partner functions.
• Act as a trusted advisor on service delivery matters, providing insights and recommendations to improve employee and manager experiences.
• Help facilitate regular governance meetings and service reviews, ensuring transparency of performance and alignment on improvement opportunities.
• Drive operational excellence initiatives by identifying process improvement, standardization and especially automation and AI opportunities across GPSS services.
• Lead and support transformation projects, including system enhancements, process redesign, robotic process automation initiatives, and digital solutions implementation.
• Utilize data analytics and customer insights to identify trends, root causes, and opportunities for service optimization.
• Foster a culture of innovation by encouraging teams to challenge existing practices and contribute improvement ideas.
• Ensure the consistent application of quality standards, process controls, and governance frameworks across all supported services.
• Help lead quality reviews, calibration exercises, and audit preparedness activities to drive “Right First Time” outcomes.
• Maintain compliance with company policies, regulatory requirements, data privacy obligations, and employment legislation across supported geographies.
• Ensure all Knowledge Base Articles, Work instructions, and process documentation remain accurate, current, and audit ready.
• Manage operational risks proactively through monitoring, issue identification, corrective action planning, and escalation management.
• Support and where required lead service transitions including knowledge transfer, process documentation, readiness assessments, cutover planning, hypercare support, and service stabilization activities.
• Partner with project teams and stakeholders to ensure effective change management and successful adoption of new processes, technologies, and operating models.
• Drive communication and engagement activities during periods of organizational and operational change.
• Parter with SDM in analyzing operational performance data, workforce trends, customer feedback, and service metrics to generate actionable insights.
• Collaborate with SDM to prepare and present management reports, dashboards, and recommendations to senior leadership.
• Utilize data driven decision making to improve performance, optimize resource allocation and support strategic service delivery objectives.
• Contribute to business planning, and strategic workforce discussions through the provision of operational insights and recommendations

Qualifications & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in any field.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in Human Resources, HR Shared Services, HR Operations, or a similar service delivery environment.
• Minimum of 2-3 years of experience leading teams or shift operations within a customer-focused or shared services environment.
• Good understanding of HR processes across the employee lifecycle, including onboarding, employee data management, leave administration, learning administration, and offboarding.
• Experience working with HR systems, preferably Oracle HCM, and case management tools such as People Assist, ServiceNow, or similar platforms.
• Working knowledge of SLA management, queue management, workload balancing, escalation handling, and operational reporting.
• Demonstrated experience leading, coaching, and developing teams while supporting recruitment, onboarding, performance management, and employee engagement activities.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and organizational skills with the ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Effective stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to collaborate across HR teams, Centers of Expertise (CoEs), Payroll, and business stakeholders.
• Continuous improvement mindset with experience identifying and supporting process improvements and operational efficiencies.

Demonstrates adaptability, resilience, professionalism, and a strong commitment to customer service, confidentiality, and compliance.

Continue your career journey as an Arcadian.

We can only achieve our goals when everyone is empowered to be their best. We believe everyone's contribution matters. It’s why we are pioneering a skills based approach, where you can harness your unique experience and expertise to carve your career path and maximize the impact we can make together.

You do meaningful work, and no matter where your next role in Arcadis takes you, you’ll be helping to deliver sustainable solutions for a more prosperous planet. Make your mark; on your career, your colleagues, your clients, your life and the world around you.

Together, we can create a lasting legacy.

Our Commitment to Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

We want you to be able to bring your best self to work every day, which is why we take equality and inclusion seriously and hold ourselves to account for our actions. Our ambition is to be an employer of choice and provide a great place to work for all our people. At Arcadis, you will have the opportunity to build the career that is right for you. Because each Arcadian has their own motivations, their own career goals. And, as a ‘people first’ business, it is why we will take the time to listen, to understand what you want from your time here, and provide the support you need to achieve your ambitions.

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