People and Performance Manager

People and Performance Manager
Closing date : Monday 2nd November 2026
About Restless Development
Restless Development is a globally connected, locally led network incubating youth-led change. For 40 years, we’ve supported young people to take on the world’s biggest challenges. We shift power and resources directly to young people, equipping them with leadership skills, and connecting them with their peers and decision makers to drive long-term change. We run youth-led programmes to tackle the issues that young people care about the most – We also run the Youth Collective – a growing network of over 4000 local youth civil society groups and organisations in 185 countries. We are committed to creating an agency that walks the talk on power shifting, using the power shifting checklist, both internally and externally.
Our approach to safeguarding
Restless Development considers the welfare and protection of children, young people and vulnerable adults to be an organisational imperative with primacy over the success of programmes or strategic objectives. We recognise that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and we expect all of our staff, volunteers and partners to ensure we protect the communities in which we operate from harm and abide by our Safeguarding Policy.
About the role
The People and Performance Manager is a new role within our Global People team. You will be the day-to-day operational lead for the People function across the Agency, working closely with the Director of People and Operations to ensure our people are supported, well and delivering their best work.
You will lead on performance management, talent development, staff wellbeing, HR policy, people data and employee relations advice across our Hubs and globally distributed teams. You will be confident moving between hands-on HR delivery and guiding Hub Directors, Hub Heads and line managers on how best to handle performance and people matters.
You will line manage the Assistant People Coordinator (who in turn supervises the People Officer), and lead the global People Community of Practice made up of our Hub people leads, strengthening consistent HR/People approaches across the Agency. You will work closely with the Safeguarding and Safety Manager, who retains responsibility for safeguarding, safety and security
Key responsibilities:
Leading People operations across the Agency
Take ownership for the day-to-day running of the People team and the delivery of the People team workplan, as agreed with the Director of People and Operations.
Line manage, coach and develop the Assistant People Coordinator, and through them ensure the People Officer is well supported and performing.
Lead the People Community of Practice for Hub people leads, providing updates, training and guidance on HR decisions and practices to drive positive and consistent HR practice across the Agency.
Draft, review and update People policies, procedures and the employee handbook for approval by the Director of People and Operations, and ensure they are understood and applied consistently in Hubs.
Act as the first point of escalation for People queries that cannot be resolved by the Assistant People Coordinator or Hub people leads.
Performance management and talent
Working with Hub teams, review, improve and embed performance management throughout the Agency, using Bamboo HR to capture goals, feedback, probation reviews and performance oversight.
Coach and guide line managers, Hub Directors and Hub Heads on managing performance, including probation, performance improvement and capability processes.
Monitor completion and quality of performance reviews across Hubs and report on trends and gaps.
Support the Director of People and Operations to manage the community of practice for the next generation of Hub Directors, including talent development and succession planning.
Coordinate the Agency’s learning and development offer, including identifying training needs and evaluating the impact of learning activities.
Employee relations
Advise managers on employee relations matters (grievances, disciplinaries, capability and absence) in line with policy, best practice and local labour law, escalating high-risk or complex cases to the Director of People and Operations.
Ensure employee relations cases are documented, tracked and resolved in a timely and fair manner.
Manage the relationship with external people services such as our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and HR Advisory support services.
Staff wellbeing and engagement
Lead the Agency’s staff wellbeing work, ensuring wellbeing is measured, reported on and prioritised through pulse surveys and other initiatives in Hubs.
Oversee the annual Agency Survey and other staff feedback mechanisms, and ensure findings are used to improve our Employee Value Proposition and culture work.
Work alongside the Safeguarding and Safety Manager where wellbeing, safeguarding or safety issues overlap, ensuring staff are referred to the right support.
Support the planning of Quarterly Staff Workshops, Re-induction and the annual leadership conference from a People perspective.
People data, HRIS and reporting
Hold day-to-day ownership of Bamboo HR, ensuring data quality, appropriate access levels and that we make full use of its reporting capabilities, with capacity built across Hubs.
Produce timely and accurate people reports and key people metrics for the Director of People and Operations, the Global Leadership Group, the People and Culture Committee and the Board of Trustees.
Ensure People data is managed in line with our data protection policy and applicable national data protection legislation.
Lead the review and updating of the Restless Way to provide a central induction site for staff across the network.
Power shifting, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Support the Director of People and Operations and the Power Shifting Director to monitor and report on DEI targets, power shifting ambitions and other relevant KPIs in our Agency Plan.
Support Hubs to improve progress against People priorities identified through internal audit and other reporting mechanisms.
Contribute to external reportin

Employment type
Fixed-term

Work arrangement
Yes