Organization Design Specialist

The People and Culture Group (PCG) positions UNOPS as a people-centered, high-performing organization by driving the development of HR policies, talent frameworks, and inclusive practices aligned with the strategic plan. Through the Integrated People Strategy, PCG empowers personnel, fosters an engaging and inclusive work culture, and enables the delivery of sustainable development solutions. Partnering closely with UNOPS leadership, PCG delivers on the organization’s People Goals—shaping culture, nurturing leaders, enabling flexibility and fairness, building future-ready teams, and setting people up for success. Core capabilities include strategic HR partnering, policy integration, and process simplification through digitization. PCG prioritizes leadership development, workforce diversity, personnel well-being, and innovation in HR practices. By focusing on culture transformation and talent excellence, PCG ensures that UNOPS remains agile, equitable, and capable of delivering results in complex operational environments.

The Organization Design Specialist provides specialized expertise in organization design, workforce planning, and job analysis and evaluation to support UNOPS' strategic priorities. Working under the guidance of the Organization Design Advisor, and based in Africa or Europe, the incumbent delivers complex analytical and technical assignments, partnering with organizational leaders, supervisors, People Business Partners, regional and country HR practitioners, and corporate functions to develop evidence-based organizational solutions, spanning organization design methodologies, workforce planning initiatives, and job analysis and evaluation activities which enable UNOPS to adapt to evolving strategic priorities and operating models.

1. Organization Design

• Support the delivery of end-to-end organization design reviews by undertaking assigned analytical and technical activities across the organization design lifecycle, including diagnosis, design option development, and implementation planning.
• Conduct organizational diagnostics by analyzing current- and future-state organization structures, operating models, governance arrangements, workforce data, business processes and stakeholder feedback to identify organizational challenges, capability gaps, and opportunities for organizational improvement. 
• Facilitate workshops, interviews, and stakeholder consultations to gather requirements, validate findings, and build alignment around proposed organization and role design solutions.
• Develop organizational visualizations, organizational models, and presentation materials that support evidence-based decision making.
• Contribute to continuous improvement of organization design tools, templates, guidance materials, and methodologies.
• Track and report on implementation of recommended organization design solutions, identifying risks, dependencies, and change impacts requiring escalation.
• Partner with the Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) team to model financial scenarios and assess the long-term viability of proposed organizational changes.
• Translate organizational design policies into practical toolkits, templates, processes and standard operating procedures (SOPs) for supervisors and HR practitioners.

2. Strategic Workforce Planning 

• Support the Organization Design Advisor in developing and implementing UNOPS’ Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) framework by collaborating with HQ, regional and country-level stakeholders to translate multi-year strategic priorities into future workforce capability requirements, including recommendations on the critical roles, skills, and roadmaps (buy-build-borrow-bot) needed to drive evolving operating models and results.
• Contribute as part of the Organization Design team to the annual workforce planning cycle by participating in the collation, review, and validation of organizational structures and position plans in line with established processes and timelines.
• Conduct periodic and on-demand analyses of workforce composition, organizational capacity, capability requirements, workforce trends, and position data to inform future organization design reviews, strategic workforce planning, and business planning processes.
• Collaborate with Regional People Business Partners, in-country HR practitioners, and operational leaders at HQ and regional levels on initiatives to develop and embed fit-for-purpose workforce planning approaches, including quantitative and qualitative techniques which enhance the organization's ability to plan workforce size, capabilities, and geographic distribution in response to strategic and operational change. 
• Partner with the Process Innovation & Digitalization (PID) team to explore, pilot, and support the adoption of emerging technologies - e.g. AI, machine learning, advanced HR analytics tools - to enhance skills inferencing, workforce capability analysis, and evidence-based workforce planning.
• Collaborate with Talent Acquisition & Outreach (TAO) to advance a skills-based approach to talent acquisition by supporting initiatives which strengthen the identification, assessment, and selection of talent aligned with evolving organizational capability requirements. 
• Collaborate with Learning and Development (L&D) to translate skills mapping insights into targeted learning pathways that support talent development and internal mobility initiatives.

3. Job Design, Evaluation & Classification

• Prepare and review job descriptions/terms of reference (ToRs) to ensure alignment with organizational requirements, talent architecture, and UNOPS standards.
• Serve as a member of the classifiers’ panel for job classification and reclassification requests. Evaluate and classify positions in line with the UN System/ International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) classification standards. 
• Escalate complex or precedent-setting classification cases where appropriate.
• Share insights and best practices for ensuring the currency, consistency and overall alignment of contents of the global Standard ToR Library curated and maintained by the HR Associate (Organization Design).
• Contribute ideas and solutions for building and governing a globally distributed approach to classifying and reclassifying positions across UNOPS’ network of job classifiers, ensuring consistent levelling outcomes across comparable roles.

4. Project Delivery & Stakeholder Engagement

• Manage multiple concurrent organization design assignments, ensuring timely delivery of high-quality outputs in accordance with agreed priorities.
• Establish effective working relationships with supervisors, HQ HR Manager, Regional People Business Partners, Finance colleagues, People Analytics, and other stakeholders to facilitate collaborative problem solving.
• Contribute to change management activities associated with organization design initiatives, working collaboratively with relevant stakeholders to support adoption of approved organizational changes.

5. Knowledge Building & Sharing

• Support the organization, facilitation and delivery of training and learning sessions on organization design, workforce planning, and job analysis and evaluation topics.
• Participate in knowledge-sharing initiatives and Communities of Practice (CoPs), contributing insights and lessons learned from implementation of organization design, workforce planning, and job analysis and evaluation projects.
• Conduct research on topics related to organization design, workforce planning, and job analysis and evaluation and contribute to the drafting of reports, summaries and briefing notes.

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) in Human Resources, I/O Psychology, Behavioural Science, Business Administration, Management, or any other discipline with 7 years of relevant experience OR
• Master’s degree (or equivalent) in any of the above disciplines with 5 years of relevant experience is required
• Certified training in globally recognized job evaluation methodologies, e.g. Hay Guide Chart & Profile Method, Mercer IPE, ICSC Master Standards, etc, is required.

Desired

• Professional certification in Organization Design, Workforce Planning, Change Management, or Project Management is desired.

Required

• Progressively responsible experience in organizational diagnostics, organization design, operating model reviews, and supporting organizational restructuring and transformation initiatives.

• Experience applying quantitative and qualitative analytical methods to strategic workforce planning, including collaboration with Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) teams on annual and multi-year workforce planning, modelling, forecasting and budgeting.

• Experience in job design, job analysis, and job evaluation across all organizational levels.

• Experience using or assessing emerging technologies, including AI-enabled tools, advanced HR analytics, and automation solutions, to support organization design, strategic workforce planning, job analysis and evaluation, or broader people analytics initiatives. 

• Experience of working in matrixed, geographically dispersed, multicultural organizations.

Desired

• Experience in development or humanitarian contexts.

• Experience of working in UN system organizations.

• UNOPS does not accept unsolicited resumes. 
• UNOPS will at no stage of the recruitment process request candidates to make payments of any kind.
• Applications to vacancies must be received before midnight Copenhagen time (CET) on the closing date of the announcement. Applications received after the closing date will not be considered. 
• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and invited to proceed to the next stage of the selection process, which may include various assessments. 
• UNOPS embraces diversity and is committed to equal employment opportunity. Our workforce consists of a wide range of nationalities, cultures, languages, races, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities. We strive to sustain and strengthen this diversity, fostering an inclusive working environment where all personnel are treated with respect and have equal access to opportunities.
• UNOPS evaluates all applications based on the skills, qualifications and experience outlined in the vacancy announcement. We are committed to a fair and transparent selection process and welcome diverse perspectives, including those of women, indigenous and racialized communities, individuals of diverse gender identities and sexual orientations, and persons with disabilities.
• We are committed to enabling all candidates to perform at their best during the assessment process. If you are shortlisted and require support or reasonable accommodation to complete any assessment, please inform our human resources team upon receiving your invitation.
• UNOPS has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), sexual harassment, and other forms of abusive conduct, including discrimination, abuse of authority, and harassment. To uphold these standards, background checks are conducted for all final candidates to help ensure that individuals with a history of such conduct are not hired. By applying for a position with UNOPS, candidates acknowledge and consent to these verification processes.
  

• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post. 
• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few mandatory courses (they take around 4 hours to complete) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS. Refreshers or new mandatory courses may be required during your contract. Please note that you will not receive any compensation for taking courses and refreshers. For more information on a retainer contract here. 
• For more details about the contract types, please click here.
• All UNOPS personnel are responsible for performing their duties in accordance with the UN Charter and UNOPS Policies and Instructions, as well as other relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, all personnel must demonstrate an understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a manner consistent with UN core values and the UN Common Agenda. 
• It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential personnel. Recruitment in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.