Associate Director, Regional HR

Syneos Health is a leading fully integrated biopharmaceutical solutions organization built to accelerate customer success. We translate unique clinical, medical affairs and commercial insights into outcomes to address modern market realities.  

Every day we perform better because of how we work together, as one team, each the best at what we do. We bring a wide range of talented experts together across a wide range of business-critical services that support our business. Every role within Corporate is vital to furthering our vision of Shortening the Distance from Lab to Life.

Discover what our 29,000 employees, across 110 countries already know.

WORK HERE MATTERS EVERYWHERE

Why Syneos Health

• We are passionate about developing our people, through career development and progression; supportive and engaged line management; technical and therapeutic area training; peer recognition and total rewards program.
• We are committed to our Total Self culture – where you can authentically be yourself. Our Total Self culture is what unites us globally, and we are dedicated to taking care of our people. 
• We are continuously building the company we all want to work for and our customers want to work with. Why? Because when we bring together diversity of thoughts, backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives – we're able to create a place where everyone feels like they belong. 

Job Responsibilities

Job Summary
Responsible for managing a broad range of employee and labor relations activities to foster a positive and compliant workplace. This includes implementing programs that enhance employee engagement, morale, and inclusion; resolving workplace issues through investigation and mediation; overseeing labor/union negotiations and contract administration; and ensuring compliance with diversity, equity, and equal employment opportunity standards.

Impact and Contribution
This role provides strategic and tactical direction across a functional area, managing individual contributors and/or supervisors to deliver short-term operational results. Oversees planning, prioritization, and execution of team responsibilities, ensuring alignment with departmental goals. Applies deep expertise in a professional or technical discipline with awareness of related areas. Requires practical management knowledge to lead projects, processes, and team performance effectively.

Core Responsibilities:

• Manage regional deployment of global HR policies, ensuring consistency with local regulatory requirements.
• Partner with HR CoEs and Legal to conduct impact assessments and oversee localization of policies where required.
• Partner with Quality, Legal, Compliance and third-party providers to manage HR-related audits, inspections, and statutory reporting.
• Provide the regional/country leadership team/HRBPs with data and insight into compliance trends, risk exposure, and upcoming legislative changes.
• Act as a trusted advisor to HRBPs, CoEs and regional/country leadership (TBC), to help align people initiatives with regional business goals.
• Advise on strategic workforce planning, organizational design, and change management within the assigned country/geography.
• Represent the region in global people initiatives to ensure local feasibility and relevance.
• Collaborate with business-aligned HRBPs, COEs, and PSN Business Delivery team to ensure alignment in execution of HR programs/initiatives.
• Act as an escalation point for complex employee relations matters, balancing risk with business needs (T3 escalations).
• Ensure compliance with local employment laws and internal policies, partnering closely with legal and compliance teams.
• Manage relationships with employee representative bodies such as Works councils and Trade unions, as relevant in the country/geography, in line with the enterprise-wide works council strategy.
• Provide insights on local legislative requirements to ensure consistent and timely implementation of core HR programs such as annual cycle activities, engagement surveys.
• Monitor, critically assess and provide feedback on employee lifecycle processes to ensure efficiency, compliance and best practice adoption. 
• Ownership of Workday knowledge base content for the assigned geography/country.
• Partner with CRESS and Health & Safety.
• Support the deployment of culture and engagement initiatives across the assigned geography/country.
• Serve as a change agent during organizational shifts (e.g. mergers, outsourcing, restructuring).
• Provide regional people data and insights to support business and HR decision-making.
• Identify trends, risks, and opportunities to inform global/regional/ BU people strategy.

Qualifications & Education Requirements:

• Minimum 4 Year / Bachelor's Degree: Bachelor's degree in human resources, Employment Law, Business Administration, or a related field, Master's degree preferred.
• 8–10 years of progressive HR experience across HR compliance, employee relations, and policy advisory, with a minimum of 4 years in a leadership capacity.

Additional Qualifications:

• Strong knowledge of local employment law, data privacy regulations, and labor relations frameworks.
• CIPD qualification (Level 5 minimum; Level 7 preferred) or equivalent local HR certification preferrable.
• Exposure to trade union/works council interactions if relevant in the country.
• Experience navigating complex HR casework (grievances, disciplinaries, etc.).
• Proven experience supporting audits, policy implementation, or employment law change initiatives.
• Strong advisory, communication and interpersonal skills to influence senior stakeholders and navigate local nuances.
• Ability to collect, interpret and apply relevant data and metrics to guide decisions, identify risks, improve processes and drive strategic outcomes.
• Fluency in local language and business-level English, Critical Skills
• Leverage the Skills Ontology

Disclaimer
Tasks, duties, and responsibilities as listed in this job description are not exhaustive. The Company, at its sole discretion and with no prior notice, may assign other tasks, duties, and job responsibilities. Equivalent experience, skills, and/or education will also be considered so qualifications of incumbents may differ from those listed in the Job Description. The Company, at its sole discretion, will determine what constitutes as equivalent to the qualifications described above. Further, nothing contained herein should be construed to create an employment contract. Occasionally, required skills/experiences for jobs are expressed in brief terms. Any language contained herein is intended to fully comply with all obligations imposed by the legislation of each country in which it operates, including the implementation of the EU Equality Directive, in relation to the recruitment and employment of its employees. The Company is committed to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, including the provision of reasonable accommodations, when appropriate, to assist employees or applicants to perform the essential functions of the job.

Get to know Syneos Health

Over the past 5 years, we have worked with 94% of all Novel FDA Approved Drugs, 95% of EMA Authorized Products and over 200 Studies across 73,000 Sites and 675,000+ Trial patients.

No matter what your role is, you'll take the initiative and challenge the status quo with us in a highly competitive and ever-changing environment. Learn more about Syneos Health.
 

Additional Information

Tasks, duties, and responsibilities as listed in this job description are not exhaustive.  The Company, at its sole discretion and with no prior notice, may assign other tasks, duties, and job responsibilities. Equivalent experience, skills, and/or education will also be considered so qualifications of incumbents may differ from those listed in the Job Description. The Company, at its sole discretion, will determine what constitutes as equivalent to the qualifications described above.   Further, nothing contained herein should be construed to create an employment contract.  Occasionally, required skills/experiences for jobs are expressed in brief terms. Any language contained herein is intended to fully comply with all obligations imposed by the legislation of each country in which it operates, including the implementation of the EU Equality Directive, in relation to the recruitment and employment of its employees.  The Company is committed to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, including the provision of reasonable accommodations, when appropriate, to assist employees or applicants to perform the essential functions of the job.