Human Resources and Industrial Relations Manager

The Human Resources and Industrial Relations Manager holds day to day ownership of the human resources function across VirtuHire's managed client accounts, with a key client account as the primary account. The key client account is an outbound sales contact centre of approximately 85 employees originating lending for United States based small and medium enterprises, operated from Cape Town on United States Eastern business hours. The role exists because the volume and legal risk profile of the function has outgrown part time ownership. It is a hands on, high autonomy position. The successful candidate will run the substantial majority of matters end to end, including chairing disciplinary hearings, drawing on the HR Representative and external employment counsel for the highest exposure work. The environment is a fast moving sales floor with a young workforce, a high volume of conduct, attendance and performance matters, and unforgiving procedural fairness requirements under South African labour law. The quality and defensibility of documentation is the single most important output of this role. Reporting and Structure The role reports directly to the HR Representative. The HR Assistant reports into this role. The incumbent is responsible for allocating document dispatch, electronic signature coordination and minute taking, and for assessing on every matter whether the HR Assistant is conflicted and must be ring-fenced from that matter. The role works in close daily partnership with the Sales Director and the Head of Sales Enablement. Instructions from those stakeholders are routed through the HR Representative rather than actioned directly, so that the function retains a single line of accountability. The role liaises directly with external employment counsel, the designated independent external chairperson, the South African accounting partner and the United States based Financial Controller. Key Responsibility Areas Employee Relations and Discipline Own the disciplinary process end to end, from incident report through to final outcome, across misconduct, attendance, substance, dishonesty and conduct related matters. Assess whether conduct is chargeable and frame charges accurately, distinguishing impairment from consumption, and misconduct from incapacity. Ensure that uncharged conduct never appears in findings or reasoning. Draft notices to attend and statements of allegation, evidence bundle indexes, witness statement packs, chairperson's packs and initiator's briefs. Chair disciplinary hearings, run them properly on the record in accordance with Schedule 8 of the Labour Relations Act, and produce written outcomes with findings and reasons capable of surviving external review. Prepare and issue precautionary suspension notices, written warnings, final written warnings and termination instruments. Produce a consistency and comparator file note for every sanction, benchmarking the proposed outcome against all comparable…