Head People Services & Solutions APAC

Job Description Summary

#LI-Hybrid
Location : Selangor, Malaysia

The Head of People Services & Solutions (PS&S) APAC is a pivotal and strategic leadership role within the APAC market, responsible for aligning and translating country-specific service and operational requirements into effective delivery through PS&S. This role ensures excellence in execution by working closely with Country P&O teams and PS&S Service Delivery Leads to deliver high-quality services in accordance with the global service catalogue. As a senior partnering liaison between Services and Country, this role fosters a unified One P&O mindset and serves as the face of PS&S to a wide range of stakeholders, including business leaders and P&O communities. The role demands a strong ability to navigate complexity, build trust, and drive alignment across functions, ensuring that service delivery is not only consistent but also responsive to evolving business needs.

This role holds responsibility for stakeholder engagement across the APAC region, with a focus on building sustainable and trusted relationships that support long-term collaboration. It involves effective coordination with Service Delivery Leads to ensure that agreed services are delivered reliably and meet high-quality standards. It also includes representing PS&S within broader P&O and business communities, enabling seamless cross-functional collaboration and reinforcing the One Novartis strategy. As a member of the Global Country Delivery Excellence leadership team, this role contributes to global alignment, knowledge sharing, and the continuous evolution of country delivery excellence across all markets.

This role is ideal for a talent who combines strategic vision with operational rigor and thrives in a dynamic, matrixed environment, also from other functions.

 

Job Description

Major Accountabilities

 

Overall Management, Leadership and Business Partnering:​​

• Represent PS&S on P&O Board​ and other relevant local governance bodies. Develop and implement strategic plans to achieve PS&S global strategy goals in APAC region while promoting standards of work and service delivery​.

• Provide direction and guidance across departments and teams enabling One P&O mindset​, fostering a positive and productive work environment​. Contribute to country P&O talent discussions (e.g. identify training needs, encourage lateral moves etc)​. Country PS&S representation during strategic visits​.

Service Delivery Oversight/Representation:​​

• Promote efficiency and effectiveness through PS&S operational policies and procedures. Create space for collaboration across all PS&S workstreams​. Ensure service quality control and alignment with local requirements​.

• Monitor and analyze key performance indicators to identify PS&S areas for improvement and facilitate improvements where needed​. Ensure efficient use of PS&S resources and manage intake of requests for additional support on top of service catalogue​.

Customer Relations:​​

• Identify and develop strategies to enhance customer satisfaction​. Address escalations and resolve issues related to service quality and integration​. Maintain strong relationships with key clients and stakeholders​.

• Support implementation of case deflection strategies to streamline customer support​. Understand customer needs to identify opportunities for new products or services​.

Communication and Change Management:​

• Communicate with country stakeholders, including employees, managers, P&O and Country Leadership Teams​. Provide regular reports on PS&S performance and progress towards P&O goals​. Conduct meetings and presentations to share information and discuss business strategies (country as well as PS&S focused)​.

• Foster effective internal communication and collaboration among departments and teams​. Manage change management processes and address new requirements from the business, as well as PS&S​.

Risk Management:​​

• Identify opportunities and assess risks impacting PS&S organization (e.g. data and integration issues) in collaboration with PS&S compliance​. Support or own risk mitigation strategies and procedures partnering with relevant P&S teams (depending on topic)​

• Monitor and address any ethical or legal issues, including legal requests, in collaboration with relevant parties​. Identify needs for process improvement and facilitate appropriate action to address them​.

• Act as country contact for audits, liaise with the right parties to ensure relevant workstreams/functions are included​

The following additional activities may be in scope depending on country requirements:

• Drive for local projects/Provide insights and support to M&A activities/Provide support to restructuring projects/Lead local processes/Support local vendor management activities/Support industrial relations activities. This is not an exhaustive list of duties or functions.

What you will bring to the role:

• • BA Degree in a relevant HR or related discipline.

  • At minimum 10+ years' work experience ideally in Novartis P&O/ COE functions. A good understanding of global organizations preferred.

  • Strong Interpersonal skills; Proactive, responsive and ability to work independently with all levels of the organization. Ability to handle multiple conflicting tasks and work in an agile way to support a fast-paced environment is a must. Stakeholder Management and ability to collaborate across boundaries.

  • Core skills: Business Relationship Management, People Leadership, Organization Scope, Scale and Complexity, Geographic Scope, Critical Negotiations, Industry/Business Exposure, Financial Management, Restructuring; influencing and collaborating across boundaries. Strong Project management capabilities and people analytics skills, effectiveness with data / metrics / reporting to inform decision making.

  • Fluency in English both oral and written communication skills, local language is a plus.

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion / EEO paragraph

Novartis is committed to building an outstanding, inclusive work environment and diverse teams representative of the patients and communities we serve.

 

Skills Desired

Change Management, Employee Benefits, Hr Administration, Hr Compliance, HRIS (Human Resource Management System), Hr Operations (Hr Ops), Hr Policies, Human Resource Management System, Human Resources (HR), Labour Law, Life Insurance, Organizational Design, Organizational Development (OD), Payroll, Sdm, Service Delivery Framework, Strategic Human Resources Leadership, Talent Management, Tax, Workforce Planning