The Global Corporate Employee Relations (GCER) team at Amazon is seeking an Employee Relations Manager to support the AWS and Amazon Corporate Business Lines. The position requires an individual who has significant employee relations experience, deep subject matter expertise, and strong leadership, communication and interpersonal skills. These competencies will enable the individual to work both independently to successfully manage a broad spectrum of ER issues and with employees and partners across Amazon’s wide geographic and cultural scope.
The central objective of the Global Corporate Employee Relations at Amazon team is to ensure our organization’s treatment of every employee is fair, respectful, and consistent with our core business values, policies and objectives as we Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer. To support that objective, this position’s responsibilities fall into proactive and reactive categories. The individual will work proactively to enhance the employee experience by identifying and addressing employee concerns early, de-escalating and resolving workplace issues before they reach a level of criticality requiring reactive efforts. The individual also will work as a project manager on proactive initiatives that improve employee relations and engagement. On a reactive basis, the individual will undertake a significant amount of work on critical employee relations issues that are highly sensitive and typically can only be successfully completed with limited time. These include conducting workplace investigations and advising on challenging employee situations. Balancing time between proactive efforts and urgent-response is a critical component for success in the position.
The individual will also work proactively to:
• Partner with business leaders and HR teams to create and sustain positive employee relations programs and best practices
• Work directly with Amazon employees at all levels to identify, address and resolve concerns through mechanisms like listening sessions, focus groups, conflict resolution, and one-on-one coaching
• Analyze, diagnose, design, and revise people programs, policies, and practices to sustain positive employee relations
• Review, analyze, and report on case data to identify trends, areas of opportunity and required actions.
The position reports to an Employee Relations Principal and the position will be based in Capetown, South Africa. • Significant experience in employee relations, functional human resources or labor/employment law, including experience in workplace investigations and/or labor/employment law.
• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree, law degree, or other specialized training in employee relations a significant plus.• Experience working with large amounts of quantitative and qualitative data to identify root causes, recognize patterns, and develop creative, innovative solutions for complex problems and the ability to develop effective executive level messaging, reports and presentations to HR and business leaders.
• Strong interpersonal and persuasion skills, enabling individual to establish partnerships and work collaboratively across management levels and personalities to influence senior leadership, stakeholders, peers and employees at all levels across a large, dispersed and culturally diverse organization.
• Proven problem solving and analytical skills in an ambiguous environment with the capacity to work autonomously to manage competing priorities simultaneously while driving projects to closure.
• Highly motivated, confident, resilient, thoughtful, proactive and intellectually curious.
• Demonstrated ability to successfully navigate complex, international organizational structures.
• Experience facilitating employee listening sessions/focus group and designing and delivering training programs.
• Sound judgment and decision-making, deploying emotional intelligence in every interaction with our employee base. The successful candidate will be progressive, hands-on and customer-obsessed with the credibility and gravitas to succeed in a fast moving and customer-focused high-tech environment.
• Experience working with and applying employment & labor laws throughout Africa, within multiple countries.
• Experience coaching, consulting and advising employees and HR & business stakeholders and experience managing conflict resolution in the workplace.
• Acts with sense of urgency, a bias for action, and with a desire to thrive in a dynamically growing environment.
• Ability to handle confidential and sensitive information with a high-level of discretion.
• Technically proficient in MS Outlook, Word, Excel, & PowerPoint.
Amazon is an equal opportunities employer, and we value your passion to discover, invent, simplify and build. We welcome applications from all members of society irrespective of age, sex, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion or belief. Amazon is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from South African citizens who are members of designated groups who may contribute to Employment Equity within the workplace and the further diversification of ideas. In this regard, the relevant laws and principles associated with Employment Equity will be considered when appointing potential candidates. We are required by law to verify your ability to work lawfully in South Africa. Amazon requires that you submit a copy of either your identity document or your passport and any applicable work permit if you are a foreign national, along with an updated curriculum vitae.
Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit
https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.
