Senior HR Business Partner

**Company Description**
UP Education is a leading Australasian dual-sector education group, delivering foundation, vocational and higher education to domestic and international students. At UP Education, we are on a mission: to elevate and empower students to unlock their potential. Known for our agility, and responsiveness to the changing world.

What sets us apart from other tertiary providers? It is, quite simply, our people. Our teams come from a wide range of educational and cultural backgrounds and offer a broad diversity of professional experience. But we all have one thing in common - we are all firm believers in the power of education to transform lives and they all have the drive to make a significant impact in the communities with which they work.

We believe learning should be defined by the exceptional and at UP Education we have an ongoing commitment to the development of our staff.

**Job Description** Senior HRBP - NZ**
**Location: Ponsonby, Auckland**
**Full-time | Permanent | Hybrid**

**About the role**:
As a Senior HR Business Partner (HRBP), you will provide strategic and operational HR leadership across a number of our New Zealand business entities, working closely with the CEO and Executive Leadership Teams to enable high performance, capability development, and organisational effectiveness.

This role will provide proactive, pragmatic HR leadership across the full employee lifecycle, ensuring compliance with New Zealand employment legislation while fostering a culture that values performance, engagement, and inclusion.

Working closely with the HR Director, the Senior HRBP will help shape and deliver people strategies that build leadership capability, strengthen workforce planning, and ensure HR practices are scalable, fit-for-purpose, and add measurable value.

In this role, you will:

- Partner with senior and middle managers to design and deliver people strategies that align with business goals
- Lead or support transformation projects, including post-acquisition integration, restructures, and operational realignments
- Provide expert advice on employee relations matters, ensuring compliance and timely resolution
- Analyse workforce data and develop pragmatic, tailored solutions that address organisational and cultural needs
- Build leadership capability through coaching, frameworks, and fit-for-purpose training initiatives
- Develop and implement workforce plans that meet both strategic and operational requirements
- Support leaders through change using structured, people-focused change management approaches

**Qualifications** About you**:
We’re looking for a seasoned HR professional who is equally comfortable operating at a strategic level and rolling up their sleeves to get the job done. You’ll bring:

- Proven success as a senior HR generalist or business partner, ideally across multi-entity or decentralised business models
- Strong knowledge of NZ employment law, ER best practice, and HR operations
- Demonstrated experience leading organisational change, restructures, or integrations
- Demonstrated capability in employee relations, acting as the senior escalation point and coaching leaders through sensitive and complex issues.
- Experience coaching and developing people managers at all levels
- Adaptability to work in high-growth, fast-paced environments, with a commercial and pragmatic mindset
- Strong analytical skills, with the ability to translate workforce data into actionable insights
- You’ll thrive in this role if you’re commercially minded, people-focused, and comfortable working autonomously while collaborating across a national team.
- Tertiary qualification in HR, Business, or a related field (preferred).

**Additional Information** Why work with us**:

- Fast-growing Business: Private equity backed business known for its growth and agility.
- Be part of a forward-thinking team that embraces innovation and continuous improvement
- Flexible working with a hybrid work environment.
- Amazing work culture that is highly collaborative and supportive

**We are an equal opportunity employer. As part of our commitment to equity, we work to ensure a fair and consistent interview process. We celebrate diversity and we are committed to an inclusive work environment.