Head of People

How to hire a Head of People

A Head of People hire justifies a heavier process than any other HR role. The consequences of a mis-hire hit the managing directors, the leadership team and the workforce over 18 to 36 months. Before you write the job posting, settle four structural questions that frequently make the difference between a successful and a failed hire.

Question 1: Head of People, HR Director, or CHRO? The three titles are not used uniformly in German practice but attract different profiles. Head of People is used in tech scale-ups and international companies and signals an integrated people function (HR plus talent acquisition plus learning plus culture). HR Director is the more classic label in larger SMBs and corporations, with a stronger legal-administrative focus. Personalleiter:in is the German Mittelstand label with deep tariff and co-determination connotations. CHRO sits at board or executive-committee level in structures from 1,000 employees and is usually premature in a 250-person SMB. Choose the title that fits your sector, your talent competition and your own managing directors’ language. A wrong title choice filters out the right profiles and attracts the wrong ones.

Question 2: What co-determination and tariff scope is expected? This question decides 40 percent of the profile fit. A company with tariff binding and an established works council (or group works council) needs a Head of People with documented tariff and co-determination experience; a profile from a tech-scale-up background will fail on these topics in the first 12 months or have to rely on external advice, which damages the relationship with the managing directors. Conversely: a company with no tariff binding and no works council, scaling toward 150 employees, needs a Head of People with scaling experience in comparable structures (Series B+ tech scale-up or comparable), not a profile from 20 years of metal-and-electrical collective agreements. Specify the co-determination and tariff reality explicitly in the ad and in the first conversation.

Question 3: What strategic mission for the next 18 to 24 months? A Head of People role is not generically fillable. The typical strategic missions require different profiles: (a) scaling from 150 to 400+ employees (a profile with scaling experience, building a recruiting engine, comp-and-ben architecture, performance practice); (b) restructuring with headcount reduction (a profile with large-scale-measure experience, social-plan negotiation, outplacement steering); (c) M&A integration after an acquisition (a profile with integration experience, cultural-diagnosis maturity, compensation harmonization); (d) recovery after a crisis (burnout of the previous leader, a legal crisis, reputational damage); (e) internationalization (a profile with cross-border experience). These missions are not interchangeable; a scaling person frequently fails at a restructuring and vice versa. Clarify the mission with the managing directors before the search starts.

Question 4: A seat on the executive committee or a reporting line to the managing directors? The answer decides the profile’s seniority level and the appeal of the role. A seat on the executive committee with direct strategic input demands a profile with documented peer maturity in executive-committee rounds (stage 4 of the selection process) and attracts profiles with 10+ years of experience who value strategic visibility. A pure reporting line to the managing directors without an executive-committee seat reduces the appeal considerably at the sought seniority level and frequently leads to a profile downgrade to Personalleiter:in level (8 to 10 years of experience instead of 10+). If you are looking for a true Head of People role, the executive-committee seat is usually not negotiable.

If the four answers converge on a full-time Head of People with an executive-committee seat at an SMB of 150 to 500 employees, see the ready-to-use template on the Job description tab.