Senior Manager, HR Business Partner

Prudential’s purpose is to be partners for every life and protectors for every future. Our purpose encourages everything we do by creating a culture in which diversity is celebrated and inclusion assured, for our people, customers, and partners. We provide a platform for our people to do their best work and make an impact to the business, and we support our people’s career ambitions. We pledge to make Prudential a place where you can Connect, Grow, and Succeed.

1. Strategic Business Partnering

• Partner closely with senior leaders and people managers to understand their business strategies, priorities, challenges and workforce implications.
• Translate business strategy into practical people priorities and HR interventions that support sustainable business performance.
• Act as a trusted adviser and sounding board to leaders on organisation, people and culture matters.
• Proactively identify people-related risks, opportunities and trends before they become business issues.
• Constructively challenge business leaders where proposed people decisions may create employee, policy, governance, regulatory or organisational risks.
• Provide pragmatic solutions that balance business agility, employee experience, internal HR policies and governance requirements.
• Build strong relationships with business leaders while maintaining appropriate HR independence and professional judgement.

2. Insurance Business & Workforce Understanding

• Develop a strong understanding of the insurance business, including its commercial drivers, operating model, distribution channels, customer proposition and regulatory environment.
• Anticipate workforce implications arising from business growth, transformation, digitalisation, productivity initiatives and changes in the insurance landscape.
• Partner with leaders to ensure the organisation has the right capabilities, structures and talent to support future business needs.
• Provide HR perspectives on business decisions and help leaders understand the people, capability and organisational implications of their choices.

3. Organisation Effectiveness & Workforce Planning

• Partner with business leaders on organisation design, workforce planning, spans and layers, role clarity and productivity.
• Challenge and advise on headcount requirements, resource allocation and organisational structures to ensure resources are deployed effectively.
• Use workforce and people data to identify trends, risks and opportunities and translate insights into actionable recommendations.
• Support organisation transformation and restructuring initiatives, ensuring appropriate people planning, communication and change management.

4. Talent, Succession & Capability

• Partner with leaders to identify critical roles, talent gaps and future capability requirements.
• Drive robust talent reviews, succession planning and career conversations within assigned business areas.
• Challenge leaders to strengthen talent pipelines and build internal capability rather than relying solely on external hiring.
• Identify high-impact development priorities and work closely with HR Centres of Excellence to translate these into targeted interventions.
• Support leaders in making quality talent decisions based on performance, potential, readiness and business needs.

5. Performance & Employee Experience

• Coach leaders and people managers on performance management, including goal setting, performance differentiation, development and performance improvement.
• Support leaders in building a high-performance culture with clear accountability and appropriate employee support.
• Analyse employee engagement and people insights to identify root causes and support leaders in developing meaningful action plans.
• Partner with leaders to strengthen employee experience, engagement, retention and organisational effectiveness.

6. Employee Relations, Policy & Governance

• Provide sound HR advice on complex employee relations, performance and people matters.
• Interpret and apply HR policies with sound judgement, taking into account the specific business context and circumstances.
• Balance business requirements with fairness, consistency, employee experience, internal policy and appropriate governance.
• Escalate complex or high-risk matters appropriately and partner with HR specialists, Legal, Compliance, Risk and other stakeholders where required.
• Ensure people decisions are made in a manner consistent with company policies, applicable employment requirements and the governance expectations of a regulated insurance organisation.
• Identify recurring people issues and recommend improvements to policies, processes or leadership practices where appropriate.

7. Change & Transformation

• Partner with leaders through business transformation, organisational change and new ways of working.
• Assess people impacts, stakeholder readiness and organisational risks associated with major business changes.
• Help leaders communicate change effectively and bring employees along the journey.
• Act as a catalyst for culture and behavioural change aligned with the organisation’s strategic priorities.

8. HR Collaboration & Integrated Solutions

• Work closely with HR Centres of Excellence including Talent Management, Learning, Rewards, Talent Acquisition, Employee Relations and HR Operations to deliver integrated people solutions.
• Translate business needs into clear requirements for HR specialists and ensure solutions are practical and fit for purpose.
• Bring business feedback and market insights back into HR to continuously improve policies, programmes and practices.
• Champion an enterprise mindset by balancing the needs of individual business units with the broader interests of the organisation.

In this role, success is not measured by how many HR requests are completed. Success means that business leaders see you as a trusted strategic partner who makes the business better.

You will be successful when you:

• Help leaders make better people and organisation decisions.
• Anticipate workforce and talent issues before they become business problems.
• Balance business needs with sound HR judgement, policy and governance.
• Improve organisational effectiveness and workforce productivity.
• Strengthen leadership capability, talent pipelines and succession depth.
• Turn people data and employee insights into meaningful business actions.
• Build strong partnerships across Business and HR.
• Enable business growth while protecting the organisation’s people and governance interests.

Experience and Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business, Psychology, Management or a related discipline.
• Typically 7–10 years of progressive HR experience, including HR Business Partnering experience.
• Experience supporting business leaders in insurance, financial services or another regulated environment is preferred.
• Practical exposure to workforce planning, talent, performance, change and employee relations.
• Good working knowledge of Malaysian employment practices and HR governance.
• Able to manage multiple priorities, work collaboratively and communicate clearly with stakeholders.

Prudential is an equal opportunity employer. We provide equality of opportunity of benefits for all who apply and who perform work for our organisation irrespective of sex, race, age, ethnic origin, educational, social and cultural background, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, disability or part-time / fixed-term work, or any other status protected by applicable law. We encourage the same standards from our recruitment and third-party suppliers taking into account the context of grade, job and location. We also allow for reasonable adjustments to support people with individual physical or mental health requirements.