Sr. P&O Business Partner

Royal Canin's purpose is to transform the health of cats and dogs through nutrition.

This is a high-impact role supporting the West Europe Cluster (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands) — with accountability for shaping and delivering the people strategy across markets with different operating models. Most countries operate under My P&O, while Austria and Switzerland are non-My P&O, requiring flexibility in how you lead, influence, and execute.

You’ll be a trusted P&O partner for business leaders — consulting, challenging, and delivering against the people and culture agenda, local legislation, MARS 5 principles and internal policies. You’ll take responsibility across topics like talent, engagement, work council relations, and rewards, with a dual focus on future capability and business performance. In addition, you act as a cultural ambassador, helping leaders to role-model MARS 5 principles and leadership behaviors.

What are we looking for?

• Bachelor's Degree or Equivalent Level
• 2 or more years of progressive P&O experience
• Substantial ability to develop strong trusting relationships with leaders to gain support and achieve P&O strategic goals
• Advanced consulting skills and ability to influence decisions to a positive business outcome
• Comprehensive experience in development and implementation of strategic initiatives through to execution while acting as an employee champion and change agent
• Understanding of global P&O strategies, policies, legal, ethics, compliance policies and practices, and ability to provide guidance in solving business needs
• Self-driven, curious, and able to navigate ambiguity while maintaining clear priorities
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English

What will be your key responsibilities?

Strategic Partnering and Leadership Coaching

• Partner with West Europe leadership team and Line Managers to drive business results through targeted people strategies, workforce planning and change management
• Provide expert advice and coaching on leadership style, people management and change leadership — balancing associate advocacy with business priorities.
• Leverage external insights, internal data, and organisational knowledge to proactively shape the people agenda based on West Europe business needs.

Talent Management, Performance Management and Recruiting

• Support end-to-end talent planning processes, including succession planning, talent reviews and follow-up activities (e.g. development plans) for West Europe cluster
• Advise Line Manager on performance management processes and help them to identify development and performance issues early (in Collaboration with AR). Support calibration to ensure consistency and fairness.
• Collaborate with Talent Acquisition and Line Management to ensure timely and strategic recruitment aligned with workforce planning needs in My P&O countries. Lead the Recruiting Process for Non My P&O countries. Partner with Business and Talent Acquisition to position Royal Canin West Europe as an employer of choice.
• Drive internal mobility, capability building, and leadership development.

Culture, Engagement & Change Management

• Advise Line Managers on running effective engagement sessions based on Associate Survey results
• Elevate line manager capability and support the GLM community, including engagement events, line manager coaching, and advisory support
• Co-own the cluster-wide engagement and wellbeing agenda, ensuring insight-led action and measurable improvement.
• Champion behavioral shift that supports the engagement and wellbeing of Associates, propose initiatives, and ensure implementation/program deployment.

Data, Analytics and Workforce Planning

• Ensure proper workforce planning for West Europe cluster based on Regional targets.
• Together with P&O Operations role, leverage HR metrics, prepare dashboards and reports to support talent insights and decision making.

Work Council engagement & Community

• Build and maintain a strong, collaborative relationship with Works Council in NL based on transparency, trust and mutual respect and represent P&O in negotiations.
• Actively contribute to the One Mars P&O Community — sharing insights, building synergies, and scaling what works across the region.

What can you expect from Mars?

• Work with diverse and talented Associates, all guided by The Five Principles. 🐾

• Join a purpose driven company, where we’re striving to build the world we want tomorrow, today.

• Best-in-class learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University.

• An industry competitive salary and benefits package, including company bonus.

• [Insert any additional market/role specific benefits that the candidate might be interested in]