Head of People and Capability Stores, Store Operations & Safety (12 Month FTC)

Brighter Futures Start Here

At Kmart group, we’re reimagining the future of retail. With more than 55,000 team members across Australia, New Zealand and our growing global footprint, we’re united by one purpose – making everyday living brighter for our customers and communities. 

Join the team

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced and commercially minded People & Capability leader to join our business in a critical leadership role supporting our Stores, Safety & Central Operations portfolio.

As Kmart Group continues to evolve its operating model and future workforce strategy, this role will play a key part in shaping and enabling change across one of the most operationally complex parts of the business.

What you’ll be doing

Reporting to the General Manager – People & Capability, you will lead a high-performing P&C team partnering closely with senior operational leaders across Stores, Safety and Central Operations.

You will operate as a trusted advisor and strategic partner, helping leaders navigate organisational change, workforce capability, performance, engagement, talent and operational people priorities at scale. Leading a large, geographically dispersed P&C team of 25+ P&C professionals, supporting one of the largest retail workforces in Australia and New Zealand

Key areas of focus include:

• Partnering with senior operational leaders to deliver people and business strategies aligned to Kmart Group priorities
• Leading large-scale change, workforce and capability initiatives across stores and operations
• Supporting organisational design, talent and succession planning outcomes
• Coaching and influencing leaders through complex people and operational matters
• Leading operational P&C execution across major national transformation projects and business initiatives
• Driving engagement, culture, leadership capability and performance outcomes
• Providing leadership across employee and industrial relations matters, investigations and risk management – change to:  leading complex employee and industrial relations strategy, including high-risk matters, investigations and organisational risk mitigation
• Working closely with P&C Centres of Excellence to ensure fit-for-purpose solutions that support our stores and operational environments
• Shaping the future workforce through the thoughtful adoption of AI and emerging technologies to enhance productivity and team member experience.
• Developing and delivering enterprise workforce transformation initiatives including operating model evolution, workforce planning and productivity programs

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for a highly credible retail P&C leader who understands how to operate in fast-paced, operationally intensive environments.

The successful candidate will bring:

• Deep understanding of large-scale retail or operational environments
• Strong operational and blue-collar workforce experience
• The ability to operate quickly, pragmatically and with high credibility
• A strong change and transformation mindset and ability
• Exceptional stakeholder engagement and influencing capability
• The ability to simplify complexity and communicate in a way operational leaders and store teams connect with
• A high-performance orientation balanced with empathy, fairness and strong relationship building
• Experience leading across multiple functions and large-scale organisations
• Broad HR generalist capability across workforce strategy, ER/IR, organisational change, talent and leadership capability
• Previous exposure to Centres of Excellence or enterprise-wide people initiatives will be highly regarded
• The ability to balance people outcomes with commercial performance, including labour optimisation, productivity, and cost management
• Demonstrated ability to lead through ambiguity and make sound decisions in high-pressure environments
• You are someone teams genuinely enjoy partnering with — a leader who can bring pace, clarity and calm in complex environments.

Why join us?

At Kmart Group, you’ll be joining a business with scale, pace and genuine ambition. This role offers the opportunity to influence strategic workforce priorities across one of Australia and New Zealand’s largest retail workforces while partnering with senior leaders on meaningful business transformation.

You’ll be part of a values-led organisation that is committed to creating inclusive, high-performing teams and delivering better outcomes for our customers and communities.