Job brief – x2 roles (12 month fixed term contracts)
Employment Relations Lawyers
06 March 2024 at 3pm via Teams
Meeting with Carl, Sarah and
Anamika Sharma (Principal Legal Counsel - ER)
Annabelle Skadiang (Senior Solicitor - ER)
Preeti Verma (Empathetic Leader | Strategic Change Partner)
Preeti had to go quite quickly but we need to pick up with her for the advertising and TSO
Anamika and Annabelle are not hiring managers, rather they are peers.
Employment relations team
Looking for likeminded people to join the team
The team traditionally reports to Andre Lubbe (Head of ER). Andre is currently on extended leave (due to sickness however this is not publicly known). What we can say - he is on extended leave so they team are trying to fill a couple of gaps.
Roles
- X2 roles - both 12 month fixed term contracts. One of which has a very real possibility of becoming permanent.
Need two people to hit ground running in employment relations , employment law.
Ideally someone with inhouse background but not precious here.
Auckland council - funded by rate payer money. Unusual arrangements - sometimes offers fixed term contracts as a result. But always opportunities for this to become permanent employment.
Ideally one "junior to intermediate" 4-6 year PQE.
Experience in both ER and IR would be ideal. If had to pick one, ER superior. IR under control.
However at least one of two roles would need to have a background in IR.
Other senior 6+
The 6 year mark tips from legal counsel to senior
This role came about as Rene is about to go on maternity leave.
Current team
Legal counsel
Senior legal counsel
Principal legal council
Report to Andre- head of.
Really top heavy at moment.
Rene about to go on maternity leave - principle
Need a senior that sits in middle, perhaps a legal counsel or another senior legal counsel
Remuneration for these roles
Up to $150k for both
Public sector clients - quite fixed.
kS on top - 3%
Any other team benefits?
Main selling point is flex piece. Flex working - truly flex.
Monetary benefits - no.
Will come back to you on benefits…
"It's not a $300k pot"
$110k lower
$150 upper
Please send range and PD.
Can you go up to $150? Not for junior. For senior yes.
Who else in team?
Colleague also on extended leave - so just two of us.
Need to bring it back up to a team of 4 (5 with Andre).
One person departed permanently and Rene on maternity leave. Trying to plug her gap and other person.
Andre back when? A wee while away.
Reporting? Who do you report to?
Between 4 of us, Andre's absence illness
He is a member of PCLT - people and culture function not commercial legal function.
GC deals with commercial corporate legal diff team
Employment relations sits within people and culture coming to in-house
Andre member of PCLT
We actually haven't formally done any reporting changes as PCLT member Wendell Wylde, (rem head of) covering the leadership role. He's non legal. He's holding forte from LT perspective and leaving us alone to do work.
A covering for Rene part legal counsel part
Team of 4 employment consultants.
Anything higher level and complex goes to legal team
ER team - lawyers and non-lawyers.
Consultants - ER - non lawyers.
Are they managed separately no, Annabel manages and she manages to Andre.
For new people coming in. Who will be responsible for them?
Will buddy them up one each.
They'll have a leader - Wendell officially. But not as a legal mentor as he's not legally qualified. Buddy up one each for now but not sure how we manger that. No proper leader yet . How does that work
If buddy piece there, if issue that needs a call, how does that get done?
If you need to make a legal decision, we make as a group
If you ned approval to go on leave, or need managerial approvals, go to Wendell.
Tricky thing - no practicing cert/ legal. Rely on us as principle legal counsels for us to make legal decisions for council.
IR with us too - bargaining, advisory, policy,
IR, ER advisory, change and projects.
We have a full on PD too.
For this piece we look at ER specialists than IR? Again, experience in both would be ideal. If had to pick one, ER superior. IR under control.
However at least one of two roles would need to have a background in IR.
Nature of work and what's on go at moment:
Work across all 4 sub categories (IR, ER advisory, change and projects)
ER Advisory:
A day in the life of - advisory (giving businesses legal advice on ER issues such as the union who are pushing back on interpretation of collective. Need legal opinion on how to interpret collective agreements. Legal advice in relation to queries. Case management - cases re individual employee issues eg complex disciplinary issues e.g. ones leading to dismissal are escalated to our team. Part of that case management is personal grievances, eg we represent the council up to and including mediation and filing documents / applications in ER authority - bonus here if one person has this type of experience.
Advisory / Projects:
Part of advisory - advice on projects. A lot of policy development eg a lot of lead types. Few actions from bargaining main collective agreements. Salary Sacrifice policy, a lot of policy work. Drug and alcohol. We step in and give advice - we give overall advice and provide a view on whether lawful for our employees or not. Projects and policy works
Change:
Change is interesting - change and restructure.
Need full gamut.
Do you brief out much or most things done internally?
We mostly do it all in house. At moment we are stretched. We brief out litigation. We try and brief this out if we need. Depends on capacity more than capability. This week we're contracting out a bargaining as we don’t have time to be out of office for days. Have a close working relationship with a few law firms. Recently a peer review of an advice on issue vs full scale projects. No major litigation for past 3 years. Fingers crossed!
Pubic sector try to keep it all here.
Peer review piece - does this happen a lot in team? How does it work.
We meet regulatory and group chat goes off a lot. We work as a team. Style Andre encourages. He likes peer review than manager review. Not a law firm where everything gets signed off by a partner / head of ER. Here, peer review, rely on people who are comfortable to add own flair and style to work while maintain level of consistency.
If someone was very used to doing first cut then giving to someone for approval, this wont work so much. We need someone confident to own it! Equally someone to review others work - collaborate. In this space that's the advance of this role. Gives you a chance to work in team.
For more junior role - would envisage that we would funnel the less complex stuff to them to avoid need for review. And when Andre is back he has a wealth of knowledge and mentoring expertise to pass on - they'll work with him closely in team.
Close knit team. You're allocated a buddy too
Flex?
Mainly in office wfh too.
Formally we have 3 and 2 arrangement - 3 in office and 2 WFH
In practice very flex. At moment in office a lot. No body clock watching.
We handle maturely, as long as work gets done. Also we'll be in office to support new people.
Within council - relationship with key stakeholders. Describe?
Internal stakeholders - people leaders, PC comm and executives.
Carl - relationships strong here? Are they seen as key advisors and value add to work? Describe how perceived.
We have a very close relationship with strategic teams in PC department, less the transactional and payroll people. People partner and team we work closely with and they help with stakeholder management eg you have a case that involves your division. We're seen as trusted advisors (I'm ex Fonterra and it was different there!). Coming here, I have noticed relationship they value ER and enjoy working with us, not afraid or scared and are grateful for a advice we give.
External - union, PSA, external law firms.
Anything else we can share with candidates?
Perhaps an explanation around opportunities in next financial year - council and public sector employers have budgets that are strict and tight. However there will be opportunities in next financial year -don’t be perturbed by next 12 months. Here to plug gaps as we have unknowns.
At least one role we'd expect to come good as a full time role.
Advertising?
We can pick that Preeti for advertising.
Branded? We're not precious about that.
Send me across PD please.
We'll then pick up with Preeti
We have both emails.
We'll look at advertising for a couple of weeks. IF we find good we'll share in real time.