Associate Director, People Business Partner and Talent Management

Our Company Background & Culture
UPP is the first pension plan of its kind in Ontario's university sector, proudly serving over 41,000 members across five universities and fourteen sector organizations. Our purpose is to bring greater retirement peace of mind to the university sector by investing with integrity and serving members with care. As a sector-wide plan designed for growth, our doors are open to all Ontario universities.

Together, we're a team of progressive thinkers and agile doers operating within a fast-paced culture of collaboration and respect. We believe in bringing smart and capable people together to create, solve, and grow with a clear shared vision and values of integrity, inclusivity, ingenuity, and impact. Our culture is intentionally welcoming and purposefully rooted in equity, diversity, inclusion, and reconciliation (EDI&R). We believe diverse teams, perspectives, and lived experiences contribute to better decisions and a better workplace.

As a pension plan, UPP approaches investing through a long-term lens to generate and safeguard value. Our commitment to investing responsibly accounts for material risks that impact our investment portfolio to generate sufficient risk-adjusted returns to meet the pension needs of our members.

Join us in building a bright future for our members, our organization, and each other.

THE ROLE
The Associate Director, People Business Partner and Talent Management reports to the Chief People Officer. This role provides strategic people partnership support while overseeing the design and execution of key Talent Management programs including performance management, leadership development, and succession planning. The role plays a key part in advancing organizational capability by integrating workforce planning, talent development, and employee experience initiatives. The Associate Director serves as a trusted advisor to senior leaders, providing strategic HR guidance to drive engagement, performance, and leadership effectiveness. This role ensures that people strategies are effectively embedded into business operations, supporting the organization's values, culture, and strategic objectives.

This role is based in downtown Toronto under a hybrid work policy, allowing employees the flexibility to work remotely and in-office (approximately two days per week in-office).

Specific Accountabilities
People Business Partnering

• Partner with people leaders to provide strategic and tactical HR consultation, guidance, and support.
• Act as a trusted advisor on organizational design, workforce planning, and leadership effectiveness.
• Provide insights and recommendations on people-related trends and challenges to inform business decisions.
• Support employee relations matters, policy interpretation, and complex case management in collaboration with the Senior Director, Talent, Inclusion & People Partnership.
• Collaborate with Total Rewards and Talent Acquisition to ensure integrated people solutions are delivered consistently across UPP.
• Support the Senior Director, Talent, Inclusion & People Partnership in driving alignment between people strategies and business objectives.

Talent Management & Workforce Planning

• Lead the design, coordination, and execution of Talent Management programs, including performance management, leadership development, and succession planning.
• Manage UPP's performance management cycle (Strive & Thrive), ensuring continuous feedback, goal alignment, and a culture of accountability.
• Provide guidance to leaders on talent assessment, calibration, and development planning.
• Support implementation of leadership and employee development initiatives that enhance organizational capability.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of talent programs and recommend improvements based on analytics and stakeholder feedback.
• Partner with senior leaders to understand workforce needs and ensure plans align with strategic objectives.
• Support organizational design initiatives that promote agility, efficiency, and scalability.
• Assist with change management initiatives to support business transformation and employee engagement.

Stakeholder Collaboration & Advisory Support

• Provide thought partnership to the Senior Director, Talent, Inclusion & People Partnership on strategic people initiatives and processes.
• Support the design of communication and engagement strategies to reinforce organizational initiatives.
• Support other duties as required.

Qualifications & Experience

• Undergraduate degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field; CHRL designation an asset.
• 8-10 years of progressive HR experience, including at least 3-5 years in a business partner or talent management capacity.
• Demonstrated ability to advise and influence senior leaders on people strategy.
• Strong understanding of Ontario employment legislation and HR best practices.
• Expertise in performance management, succession planning, and leadership development.
• Ability to translate business objectives into actionable people strategies that drive engagement and performance.
• Excellent relationship-building and communication skills, with the ability to navigate sensitive matters with discretion.
• Analytical mindset with experience leveraging data to inform recommendations and evaluate program effectiveness.
• Highly organized with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a dynamic and evolving environment.

LIFE AT UPP
Do work that matters
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We are duty-bound to serve our members' interests, and it's a responsibility we don't take lightly. That's why we've ingrained sustainability in our work from day one—to ensure our members have a resilient future to retire into, both today and for generations to come.

Stronger together
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Collaboration is how UPP was born, and it's how we work with each other and our partners day in, day out. No one at UPP is just a number (even if they are excellent at math) and every win is a shared win.

Grow every day
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You'll have the opportunity to work on unique, once-in-a-career projects that maximize your skill set and probably teach you some new ones—at any stage in your career.

Benefits
Prioritize wellness
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At UPP, wellness takes many forms. Ultimately, it's about ensuring our people are cared for in the ways that matter to them. Check out some highlights of our inclusive employee-focused benefits program including:

• Defined benefit pension plan
• Flexible hybrid work model
• Work from abroad up to eight weeks/year
• Comprehensive group benefits including medical, dental, vision etc.
• Extended paramedical and mental health service coverage
• Health care and lifestyle spending accounts
• Fertility treatments, paid parental leave, and gender affirmation coverage
• Education Assistance program

UPP enthusiastically welcomes applications from all qualified applicants and especially invites people with lived experience as an Indigenous person, a person with a disability or as a member of another Human Rights Code protected group that faces barriers to employment to apply. Our goal is to create a barrier-free experience for every candidate throughout the recruitment process, so if you require accommodation at any point during the process, please let us know so that we can make the appropriate arrangements. It would be our honor to work with you to adapt our processes to ensure that you can meaningfully participate.
UPP respects your privacy. For information on how UPP handles the personal information you provide during the application process, please see our Job Applicant Privacy Statement.