Deputy HR Manager

Position: HR Deputy Manager
Location: Basra
Rotation: 28/28 days
Status: Rotational
Department: Human Resources


Key Responsibilities : Provide strategic HR leadership and governance in a complex oil & gas organization with a workforce model comprising over 1,000 contingent personnel and 6,000 government employees. Ensure integrated workforce planning, robust headcount control, effective nationalization and succession frameworks, large-scale recruitment governance, vendor performance assurance, HR risk management, and credible reporting to senior leadership and shareholders.


Key Responsibilities

• Assist JV HR Manager on workforce planning & control: Lead annual workforce planning across all worker categories; own headcount governance and organizational structure control.
• Drive nationalization and talent review: Contribute to nationalization strategy, readiness assessment, and transition plans; run talent reviews and capability mapping.
• Succession and shareholder coordination: Support succession governance and pipelines aligned with shareholder HR partners.
• Oversee mass recruitment governance: Manage high-volume recruitment campaigns with consistent selection standards and audit-ready processes.
• MSP & agency selection: Conduct technical evaluations, service level reviews, and corrective actions related to recruitment and contingent labor.
• Maintain HR risk register and mitigation plans; report status and trends to leadership.
• Ensure HR systems & data integrity; lead data governance across all worker categories.
• Own performance management framework: Design cycle, calendar, calibration governance, and executive reporting.
• Contribute to annual rate review and maintain disciplined job catalogue governance.
• Engage with leadership: Provide proactive people solutions and early risk flags.
• Coordinate people mobility: Ensure fit-for-purpose policies and duty-of-care aligned processes for rotations and travel.
• Lead employee relations, ethics & compliance processes as required.
• Provide wellbeing advisory and support organizational health initiatives.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration / Human Resources.
• 15–20+ years of HR/people and culture experience, preferably in oil & gas or large industrial environments.
• Strong experience managing contingent labor resourcing models, MSPs, employment agencies, and large-scale recruitment.
• Demonstrated capability in workforce planning, nationalization, succession, performance frameworks, and employee relations.
• IT savvy with strong experience handling complex datasets using MS Office tools (Excel, PowerPoint, PowerBI).
• Ability to prepare reports for leadership and government representatives on people matters.
• Fluent in English (Arabic is an advantage).

With over 90 years' combined experience, NES Fircroft (NES) is proud to be the world's leading engineering staffing provider spanning the Oil & Gas, Power & Renewables, Chemicals, Construction & Infrastructure, Life Sciences, Mining and Manufacturing sectors worldwide. With more than 80 offices in 45 countries, we are able to provide our clients with the engineering and technical expertise they need, wherever and whenever it is needed. We offer contractors far more than a traditional recruitment service, supporting with everything from securing visas and work permits, to providing market-leading benefits packages and accommodation, ensuring they are safely and compliantly able to support our clients.