Job details

Zutari: Co-creating an engineered impact.

Zutari is a well-established, management-owned engineering firm with almost 90 years' experience. As human-centred engineering consultants and advisors, we are trusted by our clients, business partners, communities and other stakeholders across Africa.

We co-create engineering solutions that have a positive impact and improve people's lives. Zutari values inclusion and recognises the importance of a diverse, talented workforce, believing that people need other people to succeed.

What kind of talent do we pursue?

We employ people with the right attitude and a positive mindset, who are motivated by doing the right thing, getting things done and share a sense of urgency. People who have an impact in our teams and broader community. People who think differently and connect with those around them to co-create new opportunities and leave a meaningful legacy.
 

The Talent Partner is a senior- specialist role responsible for delivering and enhancing Talent Management, Succession Planning, Performance Management, and Culture initiatives across the Africa & Middle East region within Zutari. This role has accountabilities at group level, operating within the centres of excellence in the People Team. Working under the direction of the Head of Talent Management and Culture, this role provides expertise, facilitates core talent cycles, and partners with People Business Partners and leaders to embed high‑performance behaviours, strengthen organisational culture and retain talent critical to Zutari’s success.

The Talent Partner applies advanced professional judgment and regional insights in capacitating People Business Partners and Business leaders to adapt group frameworks, ensuring scalable and consistent implementation across diverse geographies and business units.

Role Responsibilities:

Talent Management and Succession Planning:

• Enable delivery of the enterprise talent and succession strategy across business units and geographies.
• Lead the planning and facilitation of the annual talent review cycle with PBPs and leaders, ensuring strong insights and data quality.
• Embed enterprise talent frameworks, tools, and processes.
• Partner with PBPs and leaders to identify key and high‑potential talent, ensuring effective development plans are in place to enhance readiness.
• Work with PBPs and Learning to shape development solutions for emerging leaders and high‑potential talent.
• Guide leaders through key role and succession planning, ensuring consistent application of frameworks and documentation.
• Track talent movement, readiness, and succession risk, escalating issues where required.
• Conduct regular succession reviews (check-ins), identifying gaps, risks, and readiness levels.
• Provide clear talent insights to leadership on capability gaps, succession risk, and bench strength.

Performance Management Maturity:

• Own and administer the full performance management cycle.
• Ensure business alignment to the performance framework and standards Analyse performance trends and link insights to talent actions and development opportunities.
• Equip leaders and managers to lead effective performance conversations through tools, guidance, and coaching.
• Coach PBP on key processes and conversations related to poor work performance, probation and matters related to goal setting
• Enable calibration processes ensuring that application observed is fair, consistent, and aligned with organisational standards.
• Analyse performance data to identify trends, risks, and opportunities for improvement to ensure enhanced performance management maturity.

Culture and Employee Experience:

• Co create culture-building initiatives that strengthen employee experience.
• Lead and enable employee engagement programs, including surveys, action planning, and culture initiatives.
• Champion culture initiatives that drive employee belonging, collaboration, and performance.
•  Proactively drive retention initiatives and identify early warning signals for disengagement.
• Partner with People business partners and leaders to embed diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging principles across teams.
• Act as a culture ambassador, role‑modelling organisational codes in all interactions.
• Own the Employee Value Proposition (EVP), ensuring it is clearly defined, governed, and consistently experienced across the employee lifecycle.
• Translate the EVP into measurable talent practices with PBPs and senior leaders, holding the business accountable for delivery and impact.

Young Talent & Early Career Support:

• Coordinate graduate and internship programme execution within the region.
• Partner with Talent Acquisition and external institutions to support attraction campaigns.
• Monitor and track young talent performance, development, and retention.
• Support programme evaluation and improvements based on feedback.

Analytics & Reporting:

• Prepare dashboards and reports for the region, ensuring accuracy and timely delivery.
• Monitor core talent and performance KPIs including succession depth, bench strength, readiness, turnover and engagement indicators.
• Provide insights and recommendations to PBPs and the Head of Talent to support decision‐making.

Stakeholder Engagement and Business Partnering:

• Work closely with People Business Partners to embed talent, performance and culture processes across business units.
• Coach managers on cores practices, tools, and conversations.
• Partner with Centres of Expertise (L&D, TA, Reward) to enable integrated talent solutions.
• Support change‑management activities for talent, performance and culture related programmes.

Minimum requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in human resources, Industrial Psychology, Business Administration or related field - Essential
• Honours Degree in Human Resources, Industrial Psychology, Business Administration or related field - Advantageous
• SABPP registration - Advantageous
• Minimum 8-10 years’ experience in Talent Management, Organisational Development, or HR Business Partnering.
• Experience supporting talent, succession, performance, or engagement cycles.
• Experience in crafting, rolling out and enabling culture journeys and EVP
• Exposure to multi-country, engineering, consulting or project-based environments is advantageous.
• Strong experience using talent analytics, assessments, or workforce insights.

Skills, and Competencies:  

• Ms Office Proficiency: (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) at Advanced level
• Communication skills: Ability to engage effectively with management and employees at all levels.
• Advanced Facilitation skills: Designs and leads inclusive, outcome‑focused discussions with senior stakeholders, effectively managing group dynamics to drive alignment, decisions, and actionable outcomes on complex people matters.
• Analytical Skills: Applies strong analytical capability to interpret complex data, identify patterns and risks, and translate insights into clear, evidence‑based recommendations that inform decision‑making.
• Collaboration: Builds strong, trust‑based partnerships across functions and regions, effectively navigating diverse stakeholder agendas to drive shared ownership and integrated talent solutions.
• Project Management: Plans, prioritises and delivers multiple concurrent talent cycles and strategic initiatives, applying disciplined project management practices to meet timelines, manage risks, and ensure quality outcomes.
• Cultural Intelligence: Demonstrates high cultural awareness and adaptability, operating with credibility and sensitivity across Africa and the Middle East to deliver talent solutions that respect local context while aligning to enterprise standards.
• Confidentiality & Judgement: Exercises sound judgement and discretion in handling sensitive talent, performance, and organisational information, maintaining confidentiality while balancing transparency, fairness, and business needs.
• Influence and persuade: Shapes stakeholder thinking and builds commitment by framing compelling, evidence‑based narratives, adapting style to diverse audiences, and leveraging credibility, relationships, and organisational context to secure alignment and decisive action without formal authority.
  
  We believe that a diverse workforce is key to our business success.  We seek the best people for our jobs based on their skills, qualifications, and experience.  We embrace the principle of equal opportunity in employment, and we work towards eliminating all forms of unlawful discrimination in our employment practices.  In support of diversity and the equal opportunity principle, preference will be given to individuals from designated groups within South Africa.