Human Resources Advisor

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Employment opportunity (full-time, regular position) available in Faculty of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences, located at Macdonald Campus, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue.

Position Summary:
Reporting to the Director Administration & Finance, the HR Advisor provides expertise and strategic guidance on all HR matters required for various employee and unionized groups in the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.  Integrates human resources strategy into policy and planning frameworks.  Provide professional expertise to the Faculty’s academic leaders, administrative unit heads and other managers, in areas such as employee relations, talent acquisition and recruitment, Workday processes, collective agreement interpretation, disability management, annual compensation review and performance management, position rematching/classification, conflict resolution, new staff onboarding, McGill benefits, change management implementation, and administrative issues and inquiries.  Handles several issues of a sensitive and confidential nature.  Supervise the HR Administrator. 

Primary Responsibilities:

Advising and Consulting Role

Provide ongoing strategic and professional guidance to Directors/Chairs, Dean, Associate Deans, Managers and employees. 

Analyze current and potential complex problems and recommend course of action and alternatives, keeping in mind existing policies for academic and non-unionized MPEX staff, and provisions of several collective agreements (MUNACA, AMUSE, AMURE, AGSEM, MCLIU).   Ensure consistent application of the various policies and collective agreements.   Is consulted regularly by unit heads and other managers to discuss various issues in their operations and how to devise a plan for resolution.  Collaborates and supports stakeholders with the dissemination of best HR practices and policy interpretation across their respective unit. 

Advises on a wide range of complex questions and inquiries with regards to the Principal Investigators’ staffing needs.  Develops scenarios to accommodate their variables/restrictions and available research budgets, within the context of our collective agreements.  Writes proposals and business cases to HR for various needs and “asks” (base salary adjustments, one-time payments, higher starting salaries for attracting candidates, special payments for retention of highly-qualified research personnel). 

Makes presentations on HR related initiatives, highlights of recently-concluded collective agreements, and on overall HR services available to new tenure-track hires as part of the Dean’s orientation sessions. 

Directly supervise the work of one HR Administrator.   Approves time off requests and Work from Home requests.   Assigns work and projects.  Conducts annual performance dialogue.  

Holds the role of Faculty HR partner, Faculty Academic Affairs partner, Compensation partner, and Absence partner in Workday.   Reviews and approves business processes initiated by administrators in the Faculty.  

Addresses requests from current and former staff members for non-routine employment confirmation letters for very specific purposes (i.e. permanent residency applications requiring “wet” signature) since WD-generated documents are often too general.

Talent Acquisition

Oversee talent acquisition activities for the recruitment of candidates in several categories of employees and bargaining units.  As needed, conduct preliminary screening of candidates over the phone.  Participates in interviews and selection committees; conducts reference checks; makes offers to candidates, primarily for hiring in MPEX and MUNACA categories, at times requiring a counter-offer based on salary and negotiation of some working conditions.  Complete letters of offer; negotiates transition details (start dates, training, trial periods) with counterparts in other faculties.   Ensures follow up on progress during trial/probationary periods, and completion of forms by managers.   Exercise leadership in recommending staffing and organizational changes, or managing position abolitions for lack of funding and entitlement to severance settlement. 

Compensation

Manages Annual Compensation Review exercise for MPEX and excluded staff.  Disseminates guidelines and information about training sessions for managers, performance dialogue, assessment categories and increase percentages.  Monitors during the data entry period in WD.  Follows up on anomalies, intervenes in cases of non compliance with the guidelines or to achieve internal equity.  Reviews all submissions with the Dean, advises on employee’s past progression, makes final adjustments in order to balance the budget allocated.   Manages the Internal Equity review process as needed; submits names and justification, assigns priorities, recommends applicable percentages, and discusses with Total compensation advisors.  Informs managers of final outcome. 

Ensures application of annual salary review for Research Assistants/Associates and Postdoctoral fellows.  Collects performance recommendation reports from Principal investigators.  Populates data collection document for HR. 

Writes or updates job descriptions; conducts job audits with managers as needed.   Requests rematching to new job levels as needed.  Maintains knowledge of generic job descriptions and applicable salary scales/grades in order to advise managers on job type and level appropriate to fulfill the needs of their operations.  

Disability and Leave Management

Manage the disability process for academic and administrative staff.   Act as liaison with central Disability management to communicate information from staff on STD or LTD, or work related accidents leaves.  Monitors application of progressive return to work schedule.  Provide information /clarification to staff with regards to parental leaves, other types of leave, vacation entitlements, retirement processes, etc. 

Labour and Employee Relations

Participate in grievance settlement in conjunction with HR Labour Relations specialists and labour lawyer.  Provides background information and chronology of events leading to disputes.  Attends disciplinary meetings and arbitration hearings.  Drafts various letters resulting from such meetings.   Reviews  grievance settlement agreements initiated/drafted by central HR. 

Other Activities

Act as authorized primary user of the IRCC work permit portal.  Oversees and guides secondary users of the portal in the faculty.   Processes and submits several temporary work permit requests in the LMIA-exempt categories allowed at McGill.  Liaises with central immigration advisors with regards to non-routine cases and inquiries; discusses exceptional cases eligible for Labour-market impact assessment.   Occasionally, needs to discuss “hung up” cases with office of local federal Member of Parliament.   Disseminates or maintains information guides/check-lists and various templates for faculty hosts and prospective visitors in several LMIA-exempt categories.   Responds to general inquiries about initiating permit requests in the IRCC portal, clarifying information requested in online application documents for prospective visitors whose English is not first language, and informing of processing delays. 

Manages the annual government-sponsored program Canada Summer Jobs.  Is the official “agreement holder” for the Faculty.   Oversees the various key information submissions online between May and September (Employee/employer declaration, employer feedback survey, preparation of final activity report and reimbursement claim).

Act as liaison with HR Organizational development with regards to promoting the Staff development program.   Complete annual Bill 90 report on external training activities. 

Attends meetings with central HR units, Workday groups, and Academic Affairs Professionals Network. 

Other Qualifying Skills and/or Abilities

Demonstrated experience handling diverse human resources matters and processes. Experience with University HR policies and collective agreements.   Must possess up-to-date knowledge of best practices in Human resources. 

Excellent interpersonal skills to establish and maintain effective working relationships with employees in all employee groups, managers, administrators and academic researchers at all levels. Ability to adapt and multi-task in a constantly changing environment and ability to remain composed under pressure.  Client focused and proven analytical skills, with demonstrated ability to effectively solve problems,  propose solutions and influence decisions in a professional manner.   CRHA designation an asset. 

Proven ability to work with information of a sensitive and confidential nature.   Proficiency with the use of Workday.  Demonstrated ability to work in a computerized environment using MS suite (Outlook, word-processing, spreadsheets and presentation software) as well as virtual tools like Teams and Zoom.

Must be fluently bilingual in English and French, both spoken and written. Knowledge of English: McGill University is an English-language university where day-to-day duties may require English communication both verbally and in writing. The level of English required for this position has been assessed at a level # 4 on a scale of 0-4.

Job Profile: