Governance Risk and Compliance Manager

Governance & Compliance Manager

Manchester, West Didsbury | Hybrid – 3 days per week in the office

We’re looking for a Governance & Compliance Manager to oversee our Group Governance & Compliance function, with a particular focus on recruitment compliance, operational controls and making sure our processes work effectively in practice.

This is a broad, hands on role within an international recruitment business. You’ll lead our Governance & Compliance team and work across the business to strengthen how we manage compliance throughout the recruitment and placement lifecycle.

Alongside this, you’ll own our wider approach to governance and risk management, including the Group risk register, key policies and controls, data protection and data governance.

We’re not looking for someone from a traditional financial services, audit or corporate GRC background. We need someone who understands operational compliance and can take regulatory, contractual and business requirements and turn them into clear, practical processes and controls that people can actually follow.

What you’ll be doing

You’ll lead the Group Governance & Compliance function, with a varied remit including:

• Leading our Governance & Compliance team and continually improving how we manage recruitment and placement compliance across the Group.
• Developing practical compliance processes and controls across the recruitment lifecycle, working closely with Sales, Legal, Finance and operational teams.
• Reviewing existing processes to identify compliance gaps, unnecessary complexity or areas where controls can be improved.
• Making sure compliance requirements are properly built into business processes, systems and ways of working rather than relying on manual checks wherever possible.
• Establishing clear standards, KPIs and assurance checks to monitor placement compliance and identify recurring issues.
• Managing compliance exceptions and ensuring significant or recurring issues are appropriately escalated and addressed.
• Owning and maintaining the Group risk register, working with leaders to identify material business risks, agree appropriate actions and track these through to completion.
• Maintaining a proportionate Group governance and risk management framework, including policies, key business controls and delegated authorities.
• Acting as the Group Data Protection Lead, owning our operational privacy framework and working closely with our DPO.
• Supporting good data governance and data quality across our core business systems, including ownership and standards for key master data.
• Coordinating regulatory and legislative changes with Legal and other subject matter experts and making sure required changes are translated into practical business processes.
• Carrying out targeted compliance reviews and control checks to understand whether agreed processes are working effectively and identifying improvements where they aren't.
• Using findings from compliance reviews, incidents and recurring issues to improve processes, systems, controls and training.
• Developing useful compliance, governance and risk reporting for senior leadership and the Board.
• Leading improvement projects across governance and compliance, including opportunities to use technology and automation to make controls more effective and scalable.

What we’re looking for

The most important thing for us is someone who understands operational compliance and how to embed it into a fast paced commercial business.

Experience within recruitment, staffing or a closely related workforce environment would be strongly preferred, particularly where you've worked with contractor or placement compliance.

You’ll ideally bring:

• Strong experience in recruitment compliance, operational compliance, governance or a related role.
• A good understanding of the risks and compliance requirements involved in placing permanent and/or contract workers.
• Experience designing, implementing or improving operational compliance processes and controls.
• Experience leading or managing a compliance or operational governance team.
• The ability to understand a business process end-to-end, identify where risk sits and design proportionate controls around it.
• Experience managing compliance exceptions, audit findings or remediation actions.
• Experience maintaining risk registers and working with business owners to identify and manage material risks.
• A good working understanding of UK GDPR and operational data protection requirements.
• Strong stakeholder management skills and the confidence to challenge where processes or controls aren't working.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to turn complex requirements into straightforward ways of working.
• Experience producing meaningful compliance and management reporting.

Experience of data governance, regulatory change, information security governance, due diligence or implementing compliance technology would also be useful, but we wouldn't expect someone to already be an expert across every part of the remit.

Why this role?

This isn't a role focused on maintaining governance documentation or managing risk frameworks in isolation.

You'll have the opportunity to shape how compliance works across an international recruitment business – from the controls around individual placements through to the wider processes, systems and governance that support the Group.

You'll lead an established Governance & Compliance team and work closely with Legal, Technology, Data, Finance and Sales to solve real operational problems, improve processes and strengthen how we manage compliance as the business grows.

There is also plenty to build. You'll have scope to develop our wider governance and risk approach, improve our use of data and technology, and help create a compliance environment that is practical, scalable and supports the business rather than adding unnecessary complexity.

INDAB