Company Profile

Lively Minds is an organisation with a mission to get quality early childhood development to millions of rural preschoolers in Ghana and Uganda by activating the power of parents.  We couple our evidence-based ECD programming with innovative rigorous implementation systems to scale quickly, cheaply and sustainably." 

Job Description

About the role

The HR Learning and Development Manager will lead on Lively Minds’ L&D strategies and creating our practical on-the ground capability build initiatives that build our organisational capacity, drive performance, support career development and foster talent development. The role will also support our Head of HR in implementing people strategies that attract, retain, and grow talent as well as taking a leading role in continuing to develop a positive workplace culture aligned with our organisational goals and aspirations.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

L&D Strategy and Initiatives

• Develop and Deliver L&D Strategy – Design, implement and evaluate a forward-looking L&D strategy that aligns with organisational goals, support scaling ambitions and meet the needs of staff.
• Create and Implement Programmes – Develop meaningful learning programmes (e.g. bootcamps, leadership pathways, new country cultural briefings etc) using cost effective blend of internal and external opportunities.
• Assess Skills Gaps – Conduct skills and behaviourial gap analysis to identify current and future development needs.
• Measure and Improve Impact – Track effectiveness of training programmes through feedback and performance outcomes to refine learning and training initiatives to ensure continuous improvement.
• Foster a Learning Culture – Build a culture of continous learning and high performance as well as engaging peer networks with other NGOs and monitoring best practices to introduce innovative practices.

Succession Planning and managing “people” risks

• Strategic Talent Management – Collaborate with SMT to lead the organisation’s strategic approach to identifying talent for critical and vulnerable roles leading to the development and implementation of a robust succession plan and comprehensive capacity development plan to prepare identifed successors.
• Risk Mitigation and Retention – Proactively monitors and supports the management of potential ‘flight risks’, implementing targeted retention strategies to keep key talents to preseve institutional knowledge and maintain operational stability.
• Leadership Development - Design and implement a comprehensive career path and development framework tailored to prepare emerging leaders. This includes structured learning experiences, mentorship and coaching opportunities, and exposure to cross-functional challenges to accelerate leadership readiness.
• Targeted Learning Interventions - Uses performance appraisal data to identify high-potential employees for succession planning and to design targeted learning interventions that address performance gaps and drive continuous improvement.

 Job Evaluation & Salary benchmarking

• Create and mintain a robust salary structure - Develop and maintain a fair, transparent and equitable salary structure that aligns with Lively Minds’ compensation philosophy, ensuring internal consistency and market competitiveness and recognition of individuals performance and contributions.
• Undertake regular salary benchmarking - Conduct regular salary benchmarking, reviewing pay equity across roles and integrating compensation with career progression to support employee motivation, retention and organisational growth.

Measurement and Quality Assurance of L&D Programmes

• Implement L&D quality assurance systems - Deploy L&D quality assurance systems including learner feedback and trainer evaluations.
• Develop and main a robust feedback loops - Establish and maintain a robust feedback loops to systematically capture insights from staff and relevant stakeholders and use this feedback continuously inform and enhance the design and delivery of training programmes in alignment with evolving needs and priorities.
• Undertake regular audits and impact assessment - Conduct regular audits and impact assessment of learning programmes to ensure they are delivering the intended outcomes and driving measurable improvement in performance.

General HR Responsibilities

• Track HR metrics (turnover, absenteeism, training ROI, etc.) to provide meaningful insights to inform decision-making and continuous improvement.
• Provide regular HR reports and insights to Head of HR for decision-making.
• Champion and monitor progress on DEI initiatives and report on outcomes.
• Supervise the HR & Admin. Officer to ensure work done is of the highest standards.
• ​Support the Head of HR to:
• Develop and implement HR strategies in alignment with organisational goals and objectives including supporting organisational change and culture building intiatives.
• implement end-to-end recruitment processes including seamless induction of new joiners and checking quality of inductions. 
• Management of disciplinary and grievance issues.
• Coordinate the onboarding of contractors/consultants engaged by Lively Minds (in existing countries and in new entry countries) and ensure the “live and breathe” the LM values and behaviours.
• Design and implement employee engagement initiatives to boost employees motivation, wellbeing, and retention.
• Maintain, update and ensure compliance of HR policies and procedures.

Required Skills or Experience

To succeed in this role, you:

• Are passionate about developing others and love to find creative and fun ways to enable others to learn and thrive.
• Have a solid background in more generalised HR management but a spike in L+D.
• Are an excellent planner, facilitater and communicator- you thrive when organising practical learning opportunities for others, whether this is in virtual or formal classroom settings, or by finding clear opportunities in day-to-day activities. 
• are also able to coach and deliver feedback to trainers so that they improve the quality of their work.
• Are a great trainer yourself who can flex your style and approach to fit different audience types.
• Are flexible to travel to Uganda, Ghana and other countries that the organisation is expanding to.
• Are able to work on multiple tasks while maintaining high quality standards.
• Bring external best practice and learning to Lively Minds by networking, attending conferences and having a large appetitie for learning and continous development

Technical Abilities
Essential

• At least 2-3 years in a similar role with an additional 4-6 year background in a more generalised HR position.
• Deep understanding and application of learning concepts, frameworks, theories, instructional design, and organizational needs. 
• Experience in conducting job evaluation and development of salary structure based on salary benchmarking and localisation across multiple countries.
• Experience in succession plan development and talent development.
• Experience in creating and implementing L&D strategies for an organisation that spans multiple countries (preferably within the Global South).
• Experience in developing and delivering training programmes and achieving proven results.
• Good understanding of the labour laws in Ghana, Uganda and UK.
• Ability to manage a complex and varied work load and to work under pressure.

Desirable

• Experience coaching others, a coaching certification is desirable.
• Experience in change management.
• Behaviour-change experience.
• Worked in a charity or NGO operating within or across the Global South