People & Culture Manager

Make a meaningful impact every day

At Sydney Water, we exist for our customers and for the future of our city. We’re more than 3,500 people committed to protecting Sydney’s water, environment and communities. We work together to innovate, listen and lead, ensuring our services are sustainable, reliable and ready for what tomorrow brings.

Join us and help shape a high‑performing, engaged workforce that enables everything we do.

The opportunity

We’re seeking a strategic, influential and highly capable People & Culture Manager to partner closely with senior business leaders and guide a team of people professionals. This role plays a critical part in delivering our organisation’s strategy by shaping culture, enabling leadership capability, and supporting effective people outcomes across the business.

You will lead portfolio level people strategies, drive customer‑focused delivery, and provide expert guidance on complex employee relations matters. Your expertise will help build a capable, engaged and future ready workforce for Sydney Water.

What you’ll do

As People & Culture Manager, you will:

• Provide strategic partnering to senior leaders (EGMs and Heads of Business) to translate business strategy into targeted people plans.
• Lead and empower a small team of P&C professionals to deliver high quality, customer focused people solutions.
• Shape and deliver business unit people strategies, frameworks and initiatives aligned to organisational goals.
• Provide expert advice on complex employee and industrial relations matters, including organisational change and complex case management.
• Drive enterprise alignment by embedding P&C programs, policies and frameworks across your portfolio.
• Lead workforce planning, succession and capability initiatives in partnership with Centres of Expertise.
• Use people analytics and insights to support decision making.
• Foster a One P&C culture, collaborating closely with specialist teams (L&D, Remuneration, Workforce Planning, Leader Advisory, Culture & Performance).
• Champion safety and wellbeing, modelling Zero Harm behaviours.
• Identify opportunities for continuous improvement to lift P&C effectiveness, employee experience and organisational performance.

What you’ll bring

To be successful, you’ll have:

• Proven experience leading and developing a P&C or HR team in a complex operational environment.
• Demonstrated success partnering with senior executives as a trusted advisor.
• Strong ER/IR expertise, including management of complex casework, organisational change and union engagement.
• Experience delivering organisational change programs (e.g., restructures, role design, culture or capability uplift).
• Strong skills in people analytics, insights and reporting.
• Experience in workforce planning, capability assessment and succession planning.
• A continuous improvement mindset, with the ability to streamline processes and enhance service delivery.
• Excellent communication, coaching and stakeholder influencing skills.
• Relevant tertiary qualifications in Human Resources, Industrial Relations, Organisational Psychology or related field.

Why Sydney Water?

• Work for one of NSW’s most trusted public institutions.
• Play a pivotal role in shaping our culture, capability and the future of water in Greater Sydney.
• Hybrid working arrangements that support flexibility and work life balance.
• Join a collaborative team committed to innovation, sustainability and positive impact.
• Competitive remuneration and opportunities for development.

Recruitment Process

• To apply, please submit your CV along with a covering letter explaining why you are the right candidate for this role.
• As part of your cover letter, please submit your responses to these questions:

1. Tell us about a complex employee or industrial relations matter you managed. What made it challenging, how did you influence the leader as a trusted advisor, and what was the outcome
2. Describe a continuous improvement initiative you led that strengthened strategic people partnership in your organisation. What prompted the change, what you did, and what was the impact it had?

Essential Requirements

• You must be an Australian Citizen or Permanent Resident at the time of submitting your application to be considered for this role.

Closing Date: Tuesday 31^st March 2026.

For more information, or to request an accommodation information, you can contact priscilla.dahdah@sydneywater.com.au

At Sydney Water, we are passionate about making a difference to the lives of our customers and communities. We have a proud heritage and progressive future providing world class drinking water and services that are vital to our customers’ quality of life and safeguarding Sydney’s future. We see the world is changing, so we are changing too.

Our vision is to create better lives through world-class services, and we believe that starts with our people. Our people and their jobs are as diverse as the communities we serve. Our diverse skills, mindsets and backgrounds work together on exciting and challenging projects that make a difference and help ensure Sydney remains one of the most iconic and liveable cities in the world.

We welcome and encourage applications from diverse backgrounds, including First Nations people, LGBTQIA+ people, people with disability, people with caring responsibilities, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and veterans.

As part of the application process, Sydney Water will be collecting your personal information to assess your suitability for the role. We will also use your personal information to establish a LiveHire talent profile in our Talent Community. We look at our Talent Community first when new opportunities come up when you apply for a role. Your personal information will be collected in accordance with LiveHire’s Terms, Privacy Policy and Sydney Water’s Privacy Collection Statement – Job Application. Please see the position description for the role’s full accountabilities.