Management Specialist

Overview

Canadian University Dubai (CUD) is seeking a Performance Management Specialist to join the Human Resources Department. Reporting to the Director of HR and Administration, the role will design, implement and continuously improve the university’s faculty and staff performance management framework, ensuring fair expectations, consistent evaluation, strong manager capability, reliable data insights, and alignment with institutional strategy, culture and reward processes.

• Applicants must hold a Bachelor’s degree in HR, business, industrial organisational psychology, or a related field. A Master’s degree and or professional certification such as CIPD, SHRM CP, or PHR is preferred.
• Candidates should demonstrate strong written and verbal communication skills, including facilitation and stakeholder management, with high discretion and confidence handling sensitive and confidential information.

• Typically 3 to 5 years’ relevant experience in HR, performance management, organisational development, or people analytics is required. Demonstrated experience designing or improving performance management processes, forms, guidance and rubrics, with strong attention to fairness, consistency and documentation quality, is essential.
• Experience in higher education and complex, multi stakeholder environments is preferred, along with familiarity with HRIS platforms supporting performance processes, for example Workday. Change management experience delivering enterprise wide process adoption is desirable.

The role will span five key focus areas in faculty and staff performance management,

• Framework and cycle ownership, including policy, guidance, rubrics, annual cycle governance, communications and quality assurance, establishing clear performance expectations aligned to organisational objectives.
• Manager enablement and employee support, including coaching and feedback guidance, manager learning resources, objective setting support, fair assessment practices, documentation standards, and capability processes, including development plans and performance improvement plans.
• Competencies, skills and calibration, including competency and skills model design and administration, and the design and support of calibration and moderation practices to improve consistency and mitigate bias.
• Data, insights and continuous improvement, including cycle outcome analysis, longitudinal trend reporting, dashboards and reporting for HR leadership, pulse checks and surveys, and translation of feedback into process improvements and enhanced user experience.
• Systems and integration, including partnership with HRIS stakeholders to configure and enhance the performance management module, forms, workflows, reporting and user guidance, and coordination with Reward and Payroll on links between performance outcomes and merit or recognition processes, where applicable.

Successful candidates will apply evidence based, user centred and data informed approaches to strengthen performance management practice across the university. This includes maintaining awareness of leading practice in performance management, analytics and bias mitigation, translating insights into practical enhancements, and ensuring strong governance, risk controls and documentation standards appropriate to a higher education context.

• Design and maintain performance management policies, guidance and rubrics that promote fairness and consistency across the university, covering faculty and staff populations.
• Own the annual performance cycle, including timeline, governance, communications and quality assurance, supporting high completion rates and timely outcomes.
• Partner with the Director of HR and Administration to advise managers on coaching, feedback, and addressing performance gaps, with appropriate escalation pathways and documentation.
• Develop manager training materials and facilitate sessions on objective setting, fair assessment, documentation quality, and confident handling of difficult conversations.
• Support the design and use of development plans, capability processes and performance…