Syensqo
Performance & Culture Manager
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About Us
Syensqo is a science company developing groundbreaking solutions that enhance the way we live, work, travel and play. Inspired by the scientific councils which Ernest Solvay initiated in 1911, we bring great minds together to push the limits of science and innovation for the benefit of our customers, with a diverse, global team of more than 13,000 associates. Our solutions contribute to safer, cleaner, and more sustainable products found in homes, food and consumer goods, planes, cars, batteries, smart devices and health care applications. Our innovation power enables us to deliver on the ambition of a circular economy and explore breakthrough technologies that advance humanity.
At Syensqo, we seek to promote unity and not uniformity. We value the diversity that individuals bring and we invite you to consider a future with us, regardless of background, age, gender, national origin, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, ability or identity. We encourage individuals who may require any assistance or accommodations to let us know to ensure a seamless application experience. We are here to support you throughout the application journey and want to ensure all candidates are treated equally. If you are unsure whether you meet all the criteria or qualifications listed in the job description, we still encourage you to apply.
About the Role
Syensqo is all about chemistry. We’re not just referring to chemical reactions here, but also to the magic that occurs when the brightest minds get to work together. This is where our true strength lies. In you. In your future colleagues and in all your differences. And of course, in your ideas to improve lives while preserving our planet’s beauty for the generations to come.
We are looking for:
The Culture and Performance Manager is responsible for defining the Group's enterprise strategy for culture and performance, ensuring that how we lead, behave and perform enables the delivery of the Group's strategic ambitions.
Responsibilities
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Enterprise Culture Strategy
- Define, own and continuously evolve the Group's culture strategy, ensuring it supports the organisation's purpose, values, strategy and long-term ambitions.
- Define the desired organisational culture and the leadership and employee behaviours required to bring it to life.
- Ensure fairness and inclusion are integral to the organisation's culture, reflected in how people are led, how decisions are made, how opportunities are created and how people work together.
- Translate the desired culture into clear enterprise principles, expectations and priorities that can be consistently understood and activated across the Group.
- Provide thought leadership and strategic guidance to senior leaders and the HR Leadership Team on culture as a driver of sustainable business performance.
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Fairness and Inclusion
- Establish fairness and inclusion as core characteristics of the Group's desired culture and as expectations of leadership and organisational behaviour.
- Define the enterprise principles and expectations that enable people to experience fairness, inclusion, respect and opportunity throughout their relationship with the organisation.
- Ensure culture and people frameworks are designed to identify and reduce unintended barriers or bias and enable equitable access to opportunity.
- Use data, employee insight and external evidence to understand differences in employee experience and outcomes and identify areas requiring attention.
- Partner with the HR Leadership Team and relevant people process owners to translate these insights into actions within businesses and across the employee lifecycle.
- Ensure leaders understand their accountability for creating an inclusive environment and making fair, transparent and evidence-based people decisions.
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Culture Measurement and Change
- Establish a robust enterprise framework for measuring culture, combining quantitative and qualitative data to understand cultural health, alignment and progress.
- Define the measures and indicators that demonstrate whether the desired culture, including fairness and inclusion, is being experienced consistently across the organisation.
- Identify cultural strengths, gaps, risks and opportunities at Group and business level and translate these into actionable insights.
- Partner with the HR Leadership Team to support the development of targeted culture plans where change is required, while maintaining clear accountability within businesses for activation.
- Evaluate the impact of cultural interventions and use evidence to continuously evolve the Group's approach.
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Embedding Culture Across the Employee Lifecycle
- Define how the desired culture should be embedded across the employee lifecycle, including attraction and recruitment, onboarding, learning, leadership development, performance, talent, succession, recognition and promotion.
- Ensure people processes reinforce the behaviours, leadership expectations and principles of fairness and inclusion that underpin the desired culture.
- Partner with owners of Group people processes to ensure culture is deliberately designed into policies, frameworks, tools and employee experiences rather than treated as a standalone initiative.
- Work with the HR Leadership Team to enable consistent activation while allowing appropriate adaptation to different business contexts.
- Identify systemic barriers or practices that may undermine the desired culture and influence changes to address them.
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Group Performance Strategy
- Define, own and continuously evolve the Group's performance strategy, establishing a clear philosophy for organisational, team and individual performance.
- Define what high performance means for the Group, with a strong emphasis on outcomes delivered as well as how those outcomes are achieved.
- Establish clear principles for setting performance expectations and standards that connect individual and team contribution to business priorities.
- Ensure the performance philosophy reinforces the Group's desired culture, including expectations for leadership, collaboration, fairness and inclusion.
- Create an approach that encourages accountability, differentiation of performance, continuous improvement and meaningful performance conversations.
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Performance Standards and Measurement
- Define the enterprise framework for establishing and measuring performance standards, ensuring clarity and consistency while enabling appropriate business differentiation.
- Champion an outcome-focused approach to performance, ensuring assessment considers the value and impact delivered rather than activity alone.
- Establish principles and safeguards that support fair, evidence-based and consistent performance decisions.
- Use performance data and insights to identify trends, opportunities and potential disparities in performance outcomes across the organisation.
- Work with the HR Leadership Team to strengthen the quality and consistency of performance practices within their businesses.
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Leadership and HR Enablement
- Define the leadership expectations and behaviours required to create the desired culture and sustain high performance.
- Ensure fairness and inclusion are embedded in expectations of how leaders lead teams, make decisions, manage performance and develop talent.
- Partner closely with the HR Leadership Team, providing the strategy, frameworks, tools, insights and expertise required to activate the Group's culture and performance agenda.
- Build capability across HR to diagnose cultural and performance challenges and translate enterprise frameworks into effective business interventions.
- Provide strategic advice, insight and constructive challenge to senior leaders on significant culture and performance matters.
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Enterprise Governance, Insight and Continuous Improvement
- Establish appropriate governance, standards and success measures for culture and performance across the Group.
- Provide the Executive Team and HR Leadership Team with clear insight into cultural health, fairness and inclusion, and performance trends, highlighting areas requiring leadership attention.
- Use external research, benchmarking and emerging best practice to continuously evolve the Group's approach to culture and performance.
- Evaluate the effectiveness and business impact of Group frameworks and interventions and recommend changes where required.
- Maintain a clear enterprise view of progress, while reinforcing accountability within businesses and functions for implementation and outcomes.
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Success in the Role
- A clearly defined culture that is understood and experienced consistently across the Group.
- Fairness and inclusion being demonstrably embedded in how the organisation leads, behaves, makes decisions and manages its people.
- Measurable progress in cultural alignment and employee experience across businesses and employee populations.
- Evidence that key people processes consistently reinforce the desired culture and create fair and inclusive employee outcomes.
- Clear leadership accountability for culture, fairness, inclusion and performance.
- A Group-wide understanding of what high performance means and the standards expected.
- Stronger alignment between individual and team performance outcomes and the Group's strategic priorities.
- Performance decisions that are evidence-based, appropriately differentiated and consistently applied.
- Effective activation of the Group's culture and performance strategies by the HR Leadership Team across businesses and functions.
- High-quality culture and performance insight that enables leaders to identify risks, make informed decisions and take targeted action.
You Will Bring
- Strong experience in making real culture change happen and stick in a global and complex organisation. This incorporates performance, talent and organisation effectiveness as well as fairness and inclusion.
- Experience using people data, employee insight and external evidence to measure the effectiveness of the change programme, identify trends and translate insights into practical action.
- Proven ability to influence and constructively challenge senior leaders and HR stakeholders, working effectively through others to drive enterprise-wide change.
- Experience operating in a global, matrix or similarly complex environment is highly desirable.
- Strategic and pragmatic leader who can translate complex organisational challenges into clear priorities and practical solutions.
- Strong judgement, an evidence-led mindset and a clear focus on delivering sustainable business and people outcomes.
- Ability to build credibility and strong partnerships across the organisation, influencing and constructively challenging senior stakeholders. You champion fairness and inclusion, encourage accountability and bring an enterprise-wide perspective while recognising different business needs.
- Curious, collaborative and impact-focused, you combine high standards with pragmatism and continuously look for opportunities to strengthen culture, leadership and performance.
You Will Get
- Competitive salary and benefits package.
- The Belgium annual base salary range reasonably expected to be paid for this new hire is: €125,000 to €171,000. Actual compensation will be determined based on factors such as skills, experience, qualification and internal equity and can ultimately be more or less than the posted salary range. The primary location for this job is Belgium; however, it may also be based in other countries. For other countries, local competitive salary conditions will apply, in line with local legislation. Information will be provided before your first interview.
- 16, or more,
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