Position Overview

Scope: Europe; Individual Contributor; Collaborates closely with the HR, Legal, Finance, Managers, and employees, reporting to HR Headquarters located in Ontario, Canada.

The Senior HR Operations Specialist will combine strategic partnership with hands-on operational delivery. The role acts as the HR Operations SME for all employees and managers in Belgium, Germany and Norway, eventually extending across UK, and rest of Europe. The goal is to ensure smooth day-to-day HR operations, compliant hiring strategies, accurate payroll and an elevated employee experience, while bringing local insights into global initiatives. We’re looking for someone who has a motivation to lead, build, and evolve Calian’s global growth.

Your mission: be part of the team to build and scale a globally consistent, people-first infrastructure that enables a high-performing, compliant, and values-driven workplace aligned to Calian’s mission

Responsibilities

People Operations:

•Oversee the full employee lifecycle across the region: contracts, onboarding, offboarding, benefits administration, time-off and leaves, employee relations investigations, and mobility.

•Manage end-to-end payroll processing with external vendors, ensuring accuracy, timeliness and adherence to local regulations.

•Serve as the primary regional point of contact for employee inquiries related to policies, benefits and payroll.

•Ensure compliance with labor regulations and internal policies across all jurisdictions built seamlessly within the hiring practices.

•Support systems rollouts and process automation initiatives.

•Ensure accurate and timely data management across all People tools and systems

•Own and continuously improve regional documentation and people processes and policies.

•Generate HR reports and analytics to support data driven decisions.

People Partnership

•Provide support on HR policies, workflows, programs, and day to day topics ensuring employees have easy access to critical information.

•Support cross-functional programs such as compensation cycles, engagement surveys, or headcount planning

Policy, Compliance & Documentation

•Own and update regional HR policies and employee handbooks

•Ensure local employment compliance through hiring strategies, documentation, audit readiness, and vendor collaboration

•Understand and follow Corporate policies and procedures, and Calian’s Guide to Ethical Business Practices

•Respond to audits or regulatory requests in collaboration with internal teams

•Proactively identify and raise issues and concerns and take steps to resolve issues in a timely manner

Other duties as required within the context of the role.

What success looks like:

•Accurate and up-to-date HR data across platforms and countries

•Accurate and on-time payroll

•Smooth, consistent, and timely execution of employee lifecycle workflows (onboarding, compensation reviews, terminations, performance management, etc.)

•Clear, up-to-date policies and documentation accessible across the org

•Accurate oversight and management of compliance issues or audit

Qualifications

•6+ years of experience in Global HR Operations, including payroll and end-to-end employee lifecycle management, with a primary focus on Europe supporting multiple countries

•Direct experience within Belgium, Germany, Norway, and the UK is preferred

•Strong understanding of people systems, payroll, policy, compliance, and EORs in Europe (rest of world is an asset).

•Experience working with Employer of Records and have a solid understanding of various employment types and strategies (employees, contractors, independent consultants)

•Ability to combine analytical rigor and accuracy in payroll and compliance with strategic insight

•Proven multi-country execution with experience working across multiple countries with different labor laws and cultural contexts

•Ability to manage complexity, ambiguity, and scale with excitement, grace and structure

•Excellent communication skills across all levels of employees and management, with strong capabilities to simplify complex procedures, requirements, and information.

• Comfortable working async, across time zones, and with minimal oversight
• Passionate to build from scratch with a global mindset

Use of AI in Application Review: Calian may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to assist our recruitment team in reviewing and evaluating job applications.

Data Location and Privacy: As Calian is based in Canada, your application data may be collected, processed, and stored within Canada. Calian is compliant with UK GDPR and EU GDPR and will ensure your data is protected.