HR Director for France and Switzerland

Geneva Permanent View Job Description
The HR Director will lead the modernization and governance of HR across France and Switzerland, ensuring policies, processes, and practices are competitive, compliant, and aligned with business strategy. Acting as a trusted advisor to the CEO/CFO, the role combines strategic transformation with operational control-delivering data-driven insights, robust payroll oversight, and a pragmatic.

Added 12/12/2025

  • Provide strategic and operational HR leadership
  • Lead HR strategy and transformation across France and Switzerland

About Our Client

Our client is an international company in the hospitality industry.

Job Description



Strategic Leadership & Transformation

  • Modernize HR processes across both countries (hiring, onboarding, performance, learning, mobility, exits), ensuring scalability, simplicity, and compliance.
  • Transform compensation & benefits to ensure market competitiveness, internal equity, and cost effectiveness (salary structures, bonus schemes, incentives, benefits benchmarking, job leveling).
  • Establish HR governance (policies, standards, controls, RACI) and define KPIs and reporting cadence.
  • Provide data-driven insights to support executive decision-making (workforce analytics, turnover, absenteeism, productivity, cost of labor).
  • Shape the talent strategy: workforce planning, succession, leadership pipeline, and development paths tailored to hospitality operations.
  • Drive change management for HR initiatives, communicating clearly with leaders, managers, and frontline teams.



Operational Excellence

  • Ensure end-to-end payroll oversight (accuracy, timeliness, controls) for France and Switzerland; supervise vendors and internal teams.
  • Maintain labor law compliance: French Labor Code (including CSE, DSN, social declarations, collective agreements) and Swiss HR practices (cantonal considerations, social insurances, working time, LPP/AVS).
  • Oversee employee relations and social dialogue (works councils and union interactions in France; collaborative approaches in Switzerland).
  • Ensure robust case management (disciplinary matters, grievances, disputes) with legal partners where needed.
  • Strengthen HRIS and data quality (master data, roles, access, dashboards) and drive process automation.
  • Support health & safety, well-being, and prevention measures adapted to hospitality operations and retail-like environments.
  • Uphold a service-oriented HR model with timely, pragmatic support to operations and managers.



Leadership & Collaboration

  • Lead and develop a team of 2 HR Managers in France (coaching, objectives, performance, upskilling).
  • Partner closely with operational leaders.
  • Serve as a trusted advisor to the CFO (and CEO when needed) on workforce planning, organizational development, and people risks.
  • Ensure regular presence in Paris to support local HR teams, operations, and stakeholders.

The Successful Applicant

  • 10+ years of progressive HR experience, including cross-border responsibilities and multi-site operations.
  • Proven track record leading HR transformation while maintaining strong operational control.
  • Deep knowledge of French labor law (CSE, collective bargaining, social contributions, working time, temp/seasonal labor) and solid understanding of Swiss HR practices (social insurances, pensions, working time, terminations).
  • Strong payroll oversight and compensation strategy experience, including benefits and incentive design.
  • Experience in hospitality or adjacent retail/blue-collar environments with diverse employee populations.
  • Demonstrated stakeholder management: executive communication, social partners, and operational leaders.
  • Comfortable with HR analytics and HRIS (defining KPIs, dashboards, and data governance).
  • Bilingual French & English (written and spoken); additional languages are a plus.
  • Hands-on, pragmatic, service-oriented, with a strategic mindset and strong execution.
  • Change leadership and influencing skills; able to navigate ambiguity and drive adoption.
  • Analytical rigor, attention to detail, and high standards of confidentiality and ethics.
  • Strong planning and prioritization, able to balance transformation with day-to-day delivery.

What's on Offer

Full time and permanent position.

Quote job ref
JN-122025-6903958

Job summary

Job Function
Human Resources
Specialisation
HR Director
Industry
Retail
Location
Geneva
Contract Type
Permanent
Job Reference
JN-122025-6903958

PageGroup is an equal opportunity employer committed to workforce diversity, both as an employer as well as a recruitment service provider. Each recruitment decision we make for people we hire and people we place into new roles is based solely on the candidates’ knowledge, experience and skills.