Director, People & Culture - Four Seasons Yachts

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is a global, luxury hotel management company. We manage over 120 hotels and resorts and 50 private residences in 47 countries around the world and growing.

Central to Four Seasons employee experience and social impact programming is the company’s commitment to supporting cancer research, and the advancement of diversity, inclusion, equality and belonging at Four Seasons corporate offices and properties worldwide. At Four Seasons, we are powered by people and our culture enables everything we do.

Supporting the Senior Vice President, People & Culture, the Director will assist with the creation and implementation of the long-term People Plan for Four Seasons Yacht Operations, both for the shore-based organization and the teams on the yachts. They will lead a P&C team to provide ongoing people management support, advice and consultative services to Yacht Operations leaders enabling them to make informed business decisions that have People implications. The Director will partner with Four Seasons Yacht Operations leaders at various levels, to create appropriate solutions in the following disciplines, setting the foundation for ongoing operational excellence - recruitment, performance management, training, employee engagement, employee relations, total rewards, labour relations and change management.

The Director will partner with functional/department leaders to:

• Understand business environment, strategy & people implications
• Lead Collective Bargaining negotiations on behalf of Four Seasons
• Drive employee engagement and foster Four Seasons culture
• Champion performance & talent management strategies
• Lead & facilitate change
• Implement / execute people programs / processes
• Build internal capability to create diverse & high performing teams

Partner with Centres of Excellence (Talent, Learning & Communications/Total Rewards & Insights) to design / deliver people solutions to business issues for Yacht Operations.

The Director P&C Yachts will also collaborate with partners of Marc Henry Cruise Holdings (MHCH) .

This role is based in Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Miami, Florida, reporting to the Senior Vice President, People & Culture Operations.

Key Activities/ What You’ll Be Doing

Recruitment / Talent Development / Performance Management

• Work with Total Rewards team to facilitate global mobility to key talent into Yacht Operations roles
• Work with COE on development of department-specific P&C solutions
• Oversee corporate recruitment process of all Yacht ship based and yacht shore based related roles. Assist leaders in finding best talent internally or externally to drive business initiatives through active support of recruitment strategies.
• Create proper onboarding and orientation, and ensure it is executed to create high level of engagement for successful candidates
• Support Talent Identification process/ ensure development plans in place to support identified leaders
• Identify appropriate recruitment solutions for ship-board staffing and execute efficiently with a focus on culture fit
• Manage local succession planning processes
• Lead performance management process for Yacht Operations
• Oversee the coordination, facilitation and implementation of FS training programs
• Possibly select and work together with recruitment agencies specialised in ship-based crewing; however final selection process to be managed by Four Seasons team.
• Assist in overseeing the administration of various processes to ensure timely and accurate record keeping in Workday
• Work closely with business leaders to have clear understanding of business goals and the talent needs to achieve those goals
• Identify talent issues and impact on business – plans in place to mitigate

Labour Negotiations / Maritime Labour Convention /Maritime Administration

• Works with key internal and external stakeholders (e.g.our Ownership partners) to determine appropriate Total Rewards solutions of ship-board crew
• Acts as Four Seasons lead negotiator in Labour negotiations ensuring that Four Seasons standards are maintained throughout the process
• Seen as the Four Seasons subject matter expert on issues related to Maritime labour law or the Maritime Labour Convention

Employee Engagement

• Proactively identify issues that might impact engagement and develop plan to mitigate risks
• Operationalizes DIB strategy and tactics for Yacht Operations
• Help to define employee engagement goals and strategies to drive engagement for Yacht employees
• Work with leaders to define and implement tactics that positively impact team culture, help correct derailing behaviours or practices, and enhances overall human capital contribution

Coaching / Consulting/ Change Management

• As a trusted advisor to business leaders, provide sound advice on people plans that contributes to the leadership team’s strategic decision-making
• Provide communication and change management expertise on business initiatives, and assist people leaders at all levels to facilitate change
• Roll out global P&C initiatives to all Four Seasons Yacht employees
• Support our Yacht ownership partners where necessary, e.g. with training, learning & development of their technical marine staff, in order to guarantee meeting Four Seasons standards.

Liaise between Business and P&C Centres of Excellence

• Communicate global P&C briefings to Yacht Operations – e.g. values or changes in P&C policies/programs
• Implement P&C policies and processes in Yacht Operations
• Provide feedback to P&C COE’s on level of service provided and make suggestions for improvements
• Obtain relevant data from P&C COEs and interpret for Yacht client group
• Act as Yacht subject matter expert when working with COEs on development of P&C processes and projects
• Continuous improvement mindset to solve individual issues, and to instill best practices or systems thinking to embed processes to solve for future issues

Desired Skills/ Who You Are

• Subject Matter Expert: Expertly utilizes a proven track record in Maritime Human Resources to build appropriate People Plan. Well-versed in the Maritime Labour Convention and skilled at Maritime Labour negotiations.
• Strategic Partner: has strong commercial acumen and understanding to business goals in order to assist leaders in solving organization, people and change issues.
• Trusted Advisor: develops relationships across all functions and management levels. Highly credible and able to deal with sensitive and confidential information. Excellent commercial acumen along with multi-cultural and interpersonal skills consistent with best practices in a global environment.
• Champion of Operational Excellence: Creates and delivers effective and efficient P&C processes and services balancing unique business needs with consistency and economies of scale. Ensures that P&C team has internal and external customer focus, and leverages technology to efficiently deliver quality P&C services.
• Engaged Team Leader: Leads a team of Corporate P&C Managers to deliver results while managing multiple priorities with lean resources in dynamic and ever-changing environment; fosters resilience, continuous improvement and growth mindset within the team.
• Excellent Communicator and Change Agent: Highly skilled in all modes of communication with ability to communicate clearly and concisely. Understands the value of diverse input from everyone in the organization and can ‘push back’ with challenging and varied senior stakeholders including top executives to achieve improvement and change.
• Strategic Problem Solver: easily navigates between the development long-term strategy and short-term tactical needs required to deliver business and people goals.
• Cultural engagement expert : has a keen awareness of and understands the business value of a highly engaged employee culture, and can leverage sound and consistent P&C policies and processes to foster and drive employee culture.

Experience, Education and Professional Qualifications / What You Bring

• 10+ years in P&C generalist discipline in complex, dispersed network, preferably in luxury cruise industry
• Bachelor’s Degree required; Master’s Degree in HR or Business-Related discipline preferred. CHRP or SHRM an asset
• 5+ years of increasing responsibility, ideally as a Director or similar experience providing a broad range of strategic thought leadership and People & Culture support to various levels of employees including senior leadership

All internal applications must be submitted and approved in Workday by May 23, 2023.

Four Seasons is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action employer. Minorities, women, veterans, and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply.