Regional People Manager at Virgin Active South Africa

Your Purpose...

• Is to “change people’s lives for the better through wellness”;
• We deliver social wellness experiences that enable people to meet their personal wellness goals, through holistic physical, mental nutritional and social wellbeing.
• The Regional People Manager is responsible for implementing the organisational People Strategy into the regional operational plan and ensuring successful delivery across the region. The role partners closely with the Regional and Club leadership team to drive a high-performance culture, deliver an exceptional employee experience, and build high-performance talent pipelines while ensuring compliance with labour legislation and organisational HR practices.
• The position provides strategic and operational HR support to Club General Managers across the region and plays a key role in driving employee performance through talent acquisition, engagement, talent development, organisational culture, and people-related enquiries.

Your Duties and Responsibilities...

Strategic People Partnership

• Translate the organisational People Strategy into a regional people Operating Plan and ensure effective implementation across all clubs within the region
• Partner with the Regional Director and Club General Managers to deliver Best in Class (BIC) people practices and drive business performance.
• Act as a trusted HR advisor to regional leadership on all HR and people-related matters.

Employee Experience

• Champion and embed the organization’s behavioural values and leadership ethos to ensure an engaging, welcoming and inclusive employee experience.
• Drive a high-performance culture, ensuring the region consistently delivers its commercial objectives that is EBITDA and Revenue.
• Lead the implementation and delivery of employee engagement initiatives, including onboarding programmes, team connect and collaboration events and management days.

Talent Management & Capability Development

• Drive the regional talent, succession, management and leadership development strategy to build high performance teams within the region whilst ensuring national frameworks are applied consistently.
• Oversee talent acquisition practices including attraction, recruitment, and selection processes to ensure alignment with business requirements.
• Facilitate learning and development initiatives and support the effective delivery of learning programmes.
• Ensure the Learning Centres are managed and delivering on the Virgin Active standard of learning experiences

Employee Relations & Compliance

• Provide expert guidance on Employee Relations / People Relations matters, ensuring compliance with relevant labour legislation.
• Manage disciplinary, grievance, and dispute processes where required.
• Represent the organisation at CCMA proceedings and provide advisory support to leadership in complex ER matters.

Engagement, Climate & Organisational Development

• Lead regional engagement surveys, ensuring action plans are developed and implemented to drive improvement.
• Monitor organisational health and implement change initiatives where required to improve employee engagement and performance.
• Ensure the region is structured to successfully drive and achieve on commercial objectives.

HR Systems, Tools & Processes

• Ensure effective utilisation of HR tools and systems including performance management platforms, recruitment systems, learning management systems (LMS), and HR analytics tools.
• Promote consistent HR practices and standards across the region.

Projects & Regional Initiatives

• Lead and deliver people-related projects and initiatives across the region.
• Collaborate with the broader People Team to identify trends, risks, and opportunities impacting the workforce.

Stakeholder Relationship Management

• Develop strong and sustainable relationships with club leadership, regional teams, and National Head Office stakeholders.
• Provide coaching and guidance to managers on people management and leadership practices.

Reporting & Administration

• Produce monthly, quarterly, and ad hoc people reports as required.
• Monitor people metrics and trends to support data-driven decision making.

Travel

• Travel daily between clubs within the region and occasionally nationally as required by the business.

Our Minimum Requirements...

We can’t live without…

• Learning, Operations, or HR Tertiary Qualification
• Upto 5 years within a similar role
• Must have upto 6 years operational experience
• Management of learning centre or academy experience
• 5+ years of facilitation experience
• 5+ years of employee onboarding experience
• 4+ years’ experience within a master trainer role
• 3+ years of experience in Project Implementation experience
• HR/Learning reporting experience

Core Interpersonal Skills:

• Emotional Intelligence- proven ability to anticipate the needs of others before they are voiced
• Active Listening- Able to genuinely hear concerns with the ability to defuse tense situations and ensuring members and staff feel heard and valued
• Cultural Awareness and Fluency- understand international norms, etiquette and diverse backgrounds to provide a welcoming environment for our international and VIP members
• Empathy – be able to understand, or and be aware of, someone else’s feelings especially during stressful situations, such as travel delays or billing disputes

Operational & leadership Skills Required:

• Attention to Detail, noticing the small things
• Resilience and Composure, be able to remain calm and optimistic under extreme pressure, during peak or periods or system failures
• Problem solving and conflict resolution – be able to turn challenges into opportunities by thinking and acting quickly to resolve issues before they impact a member’s experience

 Closing Date 16 March 2026