Job group: 2
Grade: G15/1 (net (basic) monthly salary* for this vacancy EUR 14 399.34, which may be supplemented by various allowances depending on your personal circumstances)
Duration of appointment: 5 years
Career path: Managerial
Location: The Hague/Munich
Application deadline: 15.01.2020

With almost 7 000 employees, the European Patent Office (EPO) is the second-largest public service institution in Europe. It supports innovation, competitiveness and economic growth across Europe through a commitment to high-quality and efficient services delivered under the European Patent Convention, its founding treaty. It has a yearly budget of EUR 2.3 billion, entirely financed by the fees paid by its users.

In June 2019, the Strategic Plan 2023 was adopted by the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation. The plan highlights the strategic importance of talent management, modernisation and improvement of the EPO's HR services delivery model to managers and employees, as well as employee engagement.

Reporting directly to the Vice-President Corporate Services, you will lead the Principal Directorate Customer Interface and Employee Engagement. With around 100 staff, this principle directorate is the front line in terms of talent management and customer service delivery. It comprises the following 3 directorates:

Talent Management deals with attracting and developing talent with a focus on continuous learning and development
Human Resources Customer Interface provides HR services and business support via its HR interlocutors and partners, as well as services related to staff health, safety and well-being
HR Operations bundles operational centres of expertise on remuneration and staff benefits

Your main responsibilities

Co-operating closely with the Chief Corporate Policies Officer and all business areas to further support the Office and its employees to develop their full potential throughout a long-term career
Identifying ways how the Office can better and faster adapt to a changing environment, developing a flexible strategic talent management policy and supporting the EPO's transition to a learning organisation in a collaborative dynamic environment
Optimising services for managers and staff by actively leveraging the opportunities created by digitalising and simplifying processes
Managing a budget of around EUR 50 000K covering recruitment and training activities, an employee assistance programme and consultancy support

What we expect from you

A minimum of five years of relevant experience in a complex international environment with a proven track record of successfully managing change and digitalising HR processes
Outstanding teamwork and management skills
Excellent communication and negotiation skills

Your qualifications

Diploma of completed studies at master's level or – in exceptional cases – equivalent professional experience
Excellent knowledge of one of the EPO's official languages (English French and German) and ability to understand the other two; in exceptional cases, excellent knowledge of one official language and ability to understand another
Citizenship of one of the member states of the European Patent Organisation

Process and timeline
The successful candidate will be selected on the basis of qualifications and relevant experience, supplemented as appropriate by interviews, tests and/or a personality questionnaire. The interviews are expected to take place in Q1 2020.
* after deduction of EPO internal tax and before deduction of staff contributions to the social-security and pension schemes.

To foster gender diversity, EPO encourages applications from female candidates.

The EPO is an equal opportunities employer and supports workforce diversity as a signatory to the Diversity Charter (Charta der Vielfalt) since 2010. All applications for vacant positions will be welcomed and considered on the professional merits of the applicant against the role profile for the position regardless of nationality, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, parental responsibilities, age, religion or belief.

About the EPO

The European Patent Office

With almost 7 000 employees, the European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the largest public service institutions in Europe. Its headquarters are in Munich and it also has offices in Berlin, Brussels, The Hague and Vienna. The EPO was founded with the aim of strengthening co-operation on patents in Europe. Through the EPO's centralised patent granting procedure, inventors are able to obtain high-quality patent protection in up to 44 countries, covering a market of some 700 million people. The EPO is also the world's leading authority in patent information and patent searching.

In 2018, the EPO received over 174 000 patent applications and granted over 127 000 patents. Its free online patent database, Espacenet, contains more than 100 million technical documents from 100 countries, and its free neural machine translation service, Patent Translate, provides instant, high-quality translation in 32 languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian.

What we offer

intellectual challenges and empowerment through professional development
the chance to work with inspiring people from various different cultures
an excellent social package
contributory medical-insurance and pension schemes
relocation benefits and various allowances (e.g. household, dependants', childcare, education, expatriation, installation and rent allowance), depending on their personal circumstances

Application procedure

Please apply via this link: click here to apply on our website!

Agency calls not appreciated.

this job offer is not open for applications