Job Description

Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) presents an exciting opportunity for an experienced Group Lead: Talent Acquisition and Assessment to join the People & Culture team at CCBA. This role involves extensive interaction within the organisation, collaborating with P&C teams, leadership, and business units. Externally, it engages with vendors, service providers, and industry experts to stay updated on talent acquisition trends and best practices. Externally, they maintain a network of talent acquisition experts and represent CCBA at relevant conferences and workshops.

The successful applicant will be reporting into Group Head: Talent & Capability.

The Group Lead: Talent Acquisition and Assessment role holds a senior position critical for securing top talent aligned with CCBA’s strategic objectives. As a recognised thought leader internally, they provide expert guidance on talent acquisition strategies, continuously staying abreast of industry trends and best practices. By influencing functional strategies and budgets, they ensure talent acquisition remains a priority across the organisation. Additionally, through active participation in external networks and representing CCBA at industry events, they reinforce the company’s reputation as an employer of choice and a leader in talent acquisition practices.

CCBA is the largest African Coca-Cola bottler, accounting for 40% of all Coca-Cola volumes on the continent. CCBA is a Non-Alcoholic Ready to Drink (NARTD) market leader with an extensive footprint in Africa, employing over 17 000 employees and serving a combined population of over 300 million people across the continent. CCBA’s vision is to “refresh Africa every day and make the continent a better place for all”, growing successfully as a business and creating a better shared future for our people, customers, consumers, communities, planet and shareholders. We conduct ourselves with the utmost integrity for shared value and the greater good. We are a world class, customer-orientated, socially and environmentally conscious fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company that is driven by engaged, motivated and inspired employees.

Key Duties & Responsibilities

Expert Consultation: Continuously researching and staying updated on talent needs, methodologies, and best practices. Serving as an advisor for large-scale talent acquisition and recruitment programs.

Strategy Development: Crafting and maintaining the talent acquisition and assessment strategy to guide the team’s activities. This role leads the efforts in identifying and analysing organisational needs for recruitment solutions and talent acquisition technologies, ensuring alignment with CCBA’s objectives. They evaluate emerging trends in candidate experience and assessment tools, analysing internal processes to identify areas for enhancement.

Strategic Employer Branding and Talent Attraction: Collaborating closely with colleagues in People Experience and the Group Marketing team, the Group Lead drives initiatives to position the organisation as a top employer of choice. They oversee the alignment of the talent acquisition strategy, career website, and EVP to create compelling messaging that attracts and retains key talent for CCBA. Through strategic partnerships and creative direction, they ensure cohesive branding efforts that resonate with prospective candidates and ensures high candidate engagement.

Team Management: Building and nurturing a team of Talent Acquisition and Assessment specialists, ensuring adherence to industry regulations (HPCSA) and their continuous development.

Practice Development: Prioritising governance and efficiency, the Group Lead cultivates strong internal talent acquisition and assessment practices enterprise-wide. They institute frameworks, methodologies, standards, processes, and policies to ensure fairness, consistency and excellence within the talent acquisition cycle, guaranteeing compliance among all Talent Acquisition and Assessment resources, whether centralised or decentralised, while also ensuring alignment with audit, POPIA, HPCSA and other regulatory requirements.

Solution Design: Assessing market trends, the Group Lead selects and implements cutting-edge talent acquisition tools, digitising processes and enhancing recruitment experiences. Collaborating with IT and People Experience teams, they ensure system architecture supports talent acquisition programmes and promotes the organisation as an employer of choice.

Talent Pipeline Management:  This role leads the development and execution of talent acquisition initiatives, devising comprehensive plans and roadmaps for essential projects. They assign strategic talent acquisition and pipeline management programmes to Group or in-country teams for execution and oversee their progress, ensuring alignment with organisational objectives. Additionally, they oversee the selection and outsourcing of Talent Acquisition programmes and projects to vendors and suppliers when internal capacity is insufficient, managing their implementation and optimising recruitment-related budgets and costs. Finally, they conduct post-mortem evaluations to pinpoint areas for improvement in project and programme effectiveness to ensure effective talent placement within CCBA.

Stakeholder Engagement and Collaboration: Through proactive engagement and collaboration, the Group Lead establishes and maintains relationships with relevant stakeholders. Collaborating with these senior stakeholders, they develop strategic plans and budget allocations for talent acquisition initiatives, fostering alignment across the business. Additionally, they communicate and maintain the talent acquisition strategy, facilitating effective collaboration among P&C Centre of Excellence (CoE’s), in-country resources and the wider business.

Vendor Management: The Group Lead defines processes and sets standards for selecting recruitment service providers, participating in RFP processes to evaluate and contract vendors. They contribute to RFP requirements, manage vendor negotiations, and ensure compliance with policies and contracts. Additionally, they maintain a network of contractors, oversee service provider management, and cultivate professional relationships with key vendors.

Skills, Experience & Education

Qualifications:

Master’s in Industrial Psychology, with registration as an Industrial & / or Organisational Psychologist (IOP) with the Health Professional Council of South Africa (HPCSA).

Experience:

12 to 14 years in Human Resources, including at least 6 years in talent acquisition and assessment.