HR Manager - ONSITE (ILOILO)

As an HR Manager, you will lead the country’s end-to-end HR function, including recruitment, talent sourcing, employee relations, HR policies and processes, statutory compliance, employee records, performance management, onboarding, training, development, and exits. You will build strong local talent networks and ensure hiring practices are ethical, compliant, and aligned with national labour law. You will serve as a trusted point of contact for employee grievances, safeguarding, welfare, workplace safety, and disciplinary matters, while supporting managers and supervisors in handling people-related concerns fairly and consistently. You will also drive performance reviews, identify learning and development needs, maintain accurate HR data and reporting, and ensure HR processes are effectively implemented across office and field-based teams. Regular field presence will be essential to ensure HR remains accessible to employees and to foster an inclusive, respectful, and well-supported workplace culture.

Company Profile:

Our client is an international non-profit organization focused on restoring marine ecosystems while creating sustainable economic opportunities for coastal communities. Established a decade ago, the organization works in partnership with governments and local communities to manage several large marine protected areas across Southeast Asia and East Africa.

Alongside its conservation work, the organization operates a portfolio of reef-positive businesses across aquaculture, sustainable seafood, and ecotourism. Each business is strategically paired with a marine protected area, with the goal of generating sustainable commercial revenue that progressively helps finance long-term conservation efforts. The organization currently manages millions of hectares of marine areas and is continuing to expand its impact through a combination of conservation, community development, and commercially sustainable enterprises.

They are now looking for an HR Manager to lead and manage its Human Resources function in the Philippines, supporting the organization’s growing local team and ensuring a strong, people-focused workplace aligned with its mission, values, and international operations.

This is a great opportunity to join a purpose-driven international organization where your HR leadership can make a meaningful difference. You’ll have the opportunity to shape the HR function in the Philippines, work closely with a diverse and global team, and help build people practices that support both organizational growth and environmental impact. With significant ownership, international exposure, and the chance to establish and strengthen HR foundations, this role is ideal for an HR professional looking to take on a high-impact position with purpose, autonomy, and long-term growth potential.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Recruitment delivery

• Deliver the country hiring plan, from farm workers, hatchery technicians, caretakers and guards through to supervisors and managers
• Build and use local networks: technical schools and universities, fisheries and agriculture programmes, community leaders in the villages where we operate, local job boards, other groups operating in the same field
• Know and apply the recruitment-related provisions of national labour law in the country (permitted contract types, probation periods, and work permit requirements for any non-national hires), and build a working relationship with the relevant public employment service or labour office to support ethical and compliant local hiring
• Run the process end-to-end; from job description with the hiring manager, sourcing, screening, interview scheduling, reference and document checks, offer and contract, and keep track record of success
• Prioritise hiring from the coastal communities in which we work, and report on it

HR policies, systems and Group alignment

• Implement and maintain the core HR processes, templates and forms the country currently lacks such as contracts, offer letters, leave forms, disciplinary and grievance templates, onboarding checklists in collaboration with the HQ
• Identify gaps between current country practice and the company HR policy and lead the local adaptation and roll-out of Group policies
• Keep local HR policies, templates and processes up to date as Group policy and national law evolve

Employment administration, statutory compliance and payroll coordination

• Issue employment contracts on approved templates and maintain complete, confidential personnel files for every member of staff in country
• Own the HR side of the monthly payroll cycle: new joiners, leavers, changes, attendance, overtime and leave, provided to Finance to a fixed deadline. Payroll input is an HR responsibility; the actual payment and remittance of salaries and statutory contributions remain with Finance. HR's role is to make sure the underlying data, documentation and compliance records Finance relies on are accurate, complete and delivered on time
• Ensure registration, documentation and filing for all statutory obligations in the country (such as social security, health insurance and tax registration), with support from local counsel
• Keep working time, rest day and overtime records that would withstand a labour inspection, including for shift-based and security staff
• Flag to the Group HR Coordinator any practice that is not compliant. You are expected to raise problems, not absorb them

HR data management and reporting

• Set up and maintain a structured, confidential HR data management system for the country covering personnel files, contracts, leave, training and disciplinary records in accordance with the HQ best practices
• Ensure data accuracy, confidentiality and appropriate access controls, particularly for sensitive records such as safeguarding cases
• Produce regular HR reporting for the Group HR Coordinator and country leadership, covering headcount, turnover, recruitment pipeline, review completion and training

Safeguarding, grievance, employee welfare and workplace safety

• Act as the first point of contact in country for grievances, safeguarding concerns and whistleblowing reports, and escalate to the Group HR Coordinator according to protocol. Absolute discretion is required
• Make the grievance channel genuinely usable by field staff, including those with limited literacy or connectivity, and explain it repeatedly rather than once
• Deliver safeguarding and code of conduct induction and refresher training to field teams, and keep the attendance records
• Support managers on discipline, performance concerns and terminations so that they are handled fairly, consistently and lawfully
• Monitor employee welfare and working conditions across office, farm, hatchery and field sites, and raise concerns about physical or psychosocial workplace safety, including for staff working on boats, in remote locations or on shift patterns
• Build genuine trust with field and community-based staff, not just formal compliance with rules. An inclusive, respectful workplace culture is as much your responsibility as the paperwork

Performance review, growth and capacity building in country

• Run the group performance review cycle in country, across every company entity, to the group calendar
• Make sure every member of staff has a small number of written objectives at the start of the period, and that new joiners receive theirs during onboarding rather than months later
• Flag objectives that are not SMART
• Adapt the forms and the conversation to the working language of each site and support managers to conduct reviews verbally and by observation for staff with limited literacy. A review that a farm worker cannot understand is not a review
• Schedule the reviews, chase the managers, and escalate non-completion to the Group HR Coordinator
• Coach supervisors through it. Many will be conducting the first performance review of their lives. Sit with them beforehand to prepare, conduct the review with them either in person or in a video call, and debrief with them afterwards
• Ensure every review is documented, signed and filed, to a standard that would withstand a labour inspection or a dispute in this country
• Feed the outputs into training plans, promotion and succession discussions with country leadership, and into salary review input. Treat these as growth and capacity-building tools for local staff, not only a compliance record, and do not let completed reviews simply go into a drawer
• Develop the training plan, monitor its execution, and maintain a skills-acquisition log, feeding directly into the refinement of the salary grid (by experience, job description and seniority level)
• Use the review cycle and its outputs to identify learning and development needs, and work with country leadership to build simple, practical capacity-building plans for local staff
• Flag patterns to the Group HR Coordinator with teams where nothing has been done, managers who rate everyone identically, and repeated underperformance that nobody is addressing

Onboarding, records and exits

• Run structured onboarding for every new joiner, including safety, safeguarding and the grievance channel
• Run clean exits: notice, final pay, handover, exit interview, and report why people leave

Field presence

• Visit farms, hatcheries and MPA field sites regularly

Requirements

Must-have Skills/Qualification:

• At least 7 years of experience in human resources, recruitment or HR administration
• Working knowledge of national labour law and of statutory registration and filing in practice
• Experience in recruiting field or blue-collar workers at volume through local networks
• Payroll input and personnel records experience, with genuine attention to detail
• Comfortable spending time in the field; such as farms, ponds, hatcheries, boats, remote villages
• Good English communication skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with people at different levels of the organization
• Demonstrates a high level of discretion, confidentiality, and personal integrity when handling sensitive employee and organizational matters
• Demonstrated persistence and follow-through in driving HR processes to completion, including the ability to effectively follow up with managers and stakeholders despite challenges or resistance
• Genuine interest in staff development and capacity building, not only administration and compliance

Advantageous Skills/Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources or a related field
• Basic awareness of workplace health and safety principles relevant to farm, hatchery and field environments
• Background in aquaculture, agribusiness, fisheries or conservation
• Experience of working for both a non-profit and a commercial employer
• Experience of safeguarding or grievance handling
• Familiarity with DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) or Do No Harm principles in an NGO or donor-funded context
• Experience administering a performance review cycle for field or blue-collar staff, and of coaching first-time supervisors through it.
• Local language of the operating area in addition to the national language.