Senior Advisor: Human Resources - Employee Relations (ER)

• REFERENCE:
  HR0234882
• CONTRACT:
  Full-time
• PRIMARY LOCATION:
  Richards Bay, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa
• DATE POSTED:
  11 Jun 2014

Rio Tinto is a leading international mining group headquartered in the UK. Rio Tinto'sbusiness is finding, mining and processing mineral resources. Major products are aluminium, copper, diamonds, energy (coal and uranium), gold, industrial minerals (borax, titanium dioxide, salt, talc) and iron ore. Activities span the world but are strongly represented in Australia and North America with businesses in South America, Asia, Europe and Southern Africa. For more information, please visit www.riotinto.com.

Owned by Rio Tinto and located in the KwaZulu Natal province, Richards Bay Minerals (RBM) is an internationally recognized sand mining and mineral processing operations leader and is one of the world's foremost producers of titanium minerals, high purity pig iron and zircon.

 

Employing some 2 000 permanent staff and a number of well-established contracting companies, RBM is impacting positively on the lives of thousands of families within the surrounding communities who benefit from RBM's intensive social investment programme.

 

MAIN PURPOSE OF THE JOB

Reporting to the General Manager: Human Resources, as the Senior Advisor: Employee Relations, you will develop and implement an employee relations (ER) strategy that supports the Company's overall vision, mission and values for the sustainable achievement of the business goals. In addition, you will ensure a specialist employee relations service and advice on labour related matters to ensure consistent and fair implementation and adherence to policy and legislation as well as sound employment relationships.

 

JOB OBJECTIVES:

-     Maintain and improve safety, health and environmental standards and practices

 

-     Manage the employee relations function to ensure that the ER policy, collective labour agreements and employee relations structures comply with business strategy and relevant legislation

 

-    Provide advice and guidance to line management on labour relations policies, union engagements and collective bargaining aspects and matters

 

-    Monitor the ER climate in the business to identify trends and make recommendations to address the identified trends

 

-    Keep abreast of changes in employment relations matters, current practices and legislation and advise HRM accordingly

 

-    Develop ER strategy and procedures to negotiate disputes and wage agreements

 

-    Establish and maintain relationships with unions specifically with regards to change management

 

-    Achieve wage settlements within set mandate in terms of union negotiations

 

-    Implement and monitor collective bargaining agreements

 

-    Conclude unresolved plant level negotiations with unions

 

-    Run bi-monthly management/union interactions

 

-    Attend Branch Executive Committee meetings for information sharing

 

-    Advise stakeholders in the application of HR systems and processes to manage ER issues

 

-    Supervise day to day operational activities of Shop Stewards

 

-    Coordinate and manage serious disciplinary case processes to ensure consistent and fair application of policy and legislation. This includes but is not limited to coordinating formal hearings, and any subsequent appeals, ensuring that all pre-hearing procedural requirements are adhered to, overseeing the substantive fairness of the process and maintaining accurate records

 

-     Prepare, attend, represent the Company and make decisions at CCMA cases and attempt to reduce losses by ensuring that strict disciplinary processes are in place and are adhered to

 

-     Ensure effective management of grievance, disputes and disciplinary matters

 

-     Conduct PMS counseling for poor performance and manage grievance procedures

 

-     Conduct formal ER training to maintain understanding of ER practices

 

-     Perform fair and reasonable tasks related to the job and working environment, at the discretion of the Manager

 

OUTPUTS:

-     Consistent and fair implementation of and adherence to policy and labour legislation

-     Sound employment relationships and ER climate

 

-     Timely ER reports and trend analysis to assist with management decision making

 

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

-     Degree or B Tech  in Human Resource Management, with Labour Law as a major or a Law Degree (Undergraduate or Post Graduate)

 

-     A minimum of 10 years employee relations experience in a heavy industrial environment

 

-     Experience in a unionized environment as well as with the CCMA

 

-     Drivers License: EB (Code 08)

 

TECHNICAL SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES:

-      Well versed in and thorough understanding of relevant legislation including HR legislation, Mine Health and Safety Act, Minerals and Petroleum Act

-      Computer literate: MS Office while SAP is preferred

-      Sound judgment, reasoning and decision making skills

-      Excellent written and verbal communication skills

-      Strong relationship building, negotiation / influencing and conflict management skills

-      Patient, tactful ,diplomatic and calm under pressure 

-      Good team player in a multi-disciplinary team

-      Ability to work effectively across departmental and professional boundaries in a culturally diverse environment

-      Deadline driven without compromising performance

-      Strong initiative

-      High level of emotional intelligence and excellent interpersonal skills

-      Exceptional problem solving skills

-      Ability to work at both a strategic and operational level

 

Closing date: 10 January 2014

 

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