Vice President, Human Resources – Canada
Adecco is partnering with a well-established global construction organization to recruit an accomplished Vice President of Human Resources for its Canadian operations.
This is a highly visible executive leadership position with responsibility for shaping and delivering the people strategy across multiple Canadian provinces. Working closely with Canadian executives and global HR leaders, the successful candidate will help guide the organization through continued growth, transformation, and organizational change.
The role requires a commercially minded HR executive who can move comfortably between strategy and execution. This individual will advise senior leaders, lead complex people initiatives, strengthen organizational capability, and ensure that Canadian priorities remain closely aligned with the broader global people strategy.
The Role
The Vice President of Human Resources will serve as a trusted advisor to the Canadian leadership team and a key partner to global stakeholders. The successful candidate will oversee a broad HR portfolio spanning organizational effectiveness, talent strategy, workforce planning, leadership development, employee relations, change management, and HR operations.
This leader will bring consistency across provinces while understanding that each region and business group may have different operational and regulatory requirements. The position requires strong judgement, executive presence, and the ability to influence within a large, complex, and highly matrixed organization.
Key Responsibilities
Executive Partnership and People Strategy
- Develop and execute a Canadian people strategy aligned with regional business priorities and the organization’s global direction.
- Advise senior executives on organizational structure, workforce priorities, leadership capability, talent risk, and employee matters.
- Translate business plans into practical and measurable people initiatives.
- Provide thoughtful, commercially grounded guidance during periods of growth, change, and organizational complexity.
- Build strong relationships with executive leaders and become a trusted, credible partner across the business.
National HR Leadership
- Oversee the delivery of HR programs and services across multiple Canadian provinces.
- Create consistency in HR practices while addressing provincial employment legislation and regional business requirements.
- Lead, coach, and develop regional HR professionals, promoting accountability, collaboration, and high-quality service delivery.
- Establish clear priorities for the HR function and ensure the team remains focused on the most important business and workforce needs.
- Partner closely with global HR leaders, Centres of Excellence, shared-service teams, and international stakeholders on a daily basis.
Organizational Design and Transformation
- Lead organizational-design initiatives, operating-model changes, workforce restructuring, and role-alignment programs.
- Support the organization through transformation, integration, growth, and other significant business changes.
- Assess organizational capability and identify opportunities to improve structure, efficiency, accountability, and collaboration.
- Develop practical change-management strategies that support leaders and employees through transition.
- Help build an adaptable organization capable of responding to evolving business priorities.
Talent, Performance and Succession
- Lead regional talent reviews, succession planning, workforce planning, and leadership-development initiatives.
- Partner with executives to identify critical roles, high-potential talent, capability gaps, and future leadership needs.
- Strengthen performance-management practices and promote clear expectations, accountability, and meaningful development conversations.
- Develop strategies that support employee engagement, retention, internal mobility, and leadership readiness.
- Ensure regional talent programs remain aligned with global frameworks while meeting Canadian business needs.
Mergers, Acquisitions and Integration
- Provide HR leadership during mergers, acquisitions, integrations, or other major organizational transitions.
- Support people-related due diligence, workforce assessment, organizational design, communications, and integration planning.
- Identify potential people, culture, leadership, and employee-relations risks.
- Help align policies, programs, teams, and ways of working following an acquisition or organizational change.
- Partner with business and global stakeholders to promote a smooth and well-managed employee transition.
Employee Relations and Risk Management
- Provide executive oversight on complex and sensitive employee-relations matters.
- Coach senior leaders through difficult performance, conduct, restructuring, and workplace issues.
- Ensure HR policies and employment practices remain compliant with applicable provincial and federal requirements.
- Work closely with legal and other internal partners to manage organizational risk and support sound decision-making.
- Promote fair, consistent, and well-documented people practices across the Canadian organization.
HR Operations, Governance and Analytics
- Evaluate existing HR processes and identify opportunities to improve consistency, efficiency, and the employee experience.
- Support the continued development of integrated regional and global HR service-delivery models.
- Use workforce data, business metrics, and employee insights to guide decisions and identify emerging priorities.
- Establish meaningful HR measures related to retention, talent, engagement, succession, workforce capability, and organizational effectiveness.
- Ensure successful implementation of global HR programs within the Canadian business.
Candidate Profile
The ideal candidate is an experienced HR executive who has operated within a large, sophisticated, and globally connected organization. They will understand how to navigate complex reporting relationships, influence across functions and geographies, and balance global direction with Canadian business realities.
They will be equally comfortable advising executives, leading transformation, resolving sensitive employee matters, and guiding an HR team through competing priorities.
Required Experience
- Minimum of 10 years of progressive HR leadership experience.
- Experience at the Vice President, Regional HR Director, Head of HR, or comparable senior leadership level.
- Demonstrated success within a large, complex, and global organization.
- Experience supporting multiple provinces, regions, locations, or business units.
- Significant experience partnering directly with executives and senior business leaders.
- Strong background in organizational design, workforce planning, restructuring, and change management.
- Demonstrated experience with talent management, performance management, succession planning, and leadership development.
- Experience managing complex employee-relations matters and organizational risk.
- Proven ability to work effectively with global HR teams, Centres of Excellence, shared services, and cross-functional stakeholders.
- M&A, due-diligence, post-acquisition integration, or major business-transformation experience is strongly preferred.
- Strong understanding of Canadian employment legislation and provincial regulatory requirements.
Education and Professional Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, or a related discipline.
- A master’s degree or MBA is considered an asset.
- CHRL, CPHR, or an equivalent professional designation is preferred.
Leadership Capabilities
- Strong executive presence and the confidence to challenge, advise, and influence senior leaders.
- Commercially minded, pragmatic, and capable of connecting people strategy with business performance.
- Skilled at working within a matrix and building alignment across different functions, regions, and cultures.
- Comfortable leading through ambiguity, organizational change, and competing priorities.
- High level of judgement, discretion, integrity, and emotional intelligence.
- Clear and credible communicator with strong relationship-building and negotiation skills.
- Strategic in perspective while remaining practical and willing to engage in execution when required.
- Collaborative leadership style with the ability to build trust and accountability across teams.
The Opportunity
This is an opportunity to join a global organization in a senior Canadian leadership capacity and play an important role in shaping its future people strategy.
The successful candidate will have meaningful influence across the organization, regular interaction with senior executives and international leaders, and the opportunity to lead complex initiatives across multiple Canadian provinces.
