The Opportunity

At APA, our purpose is to secure Australia’s energy future. We’re not doing it alone. We’re doing it with our customers and communities as Australia’s energy infrastructure partner, a role our unique experience and expertise positions us to play.

We now have an exciting opportunity for a People Assist Manager to join our dynamic People Operations team in Melbourne, Southbank office on a permanent full-time basis.

Reporting to the Head of People Operations, this leadership role is responsible for leading and optimising the People Assist function to deliver high-quality, compliant and efficient HR operations across the full employee lifecycle.

This role provides accountable oversight of complex people matters, enterprise agreement administration and HRIS process integrity, while strengthening operational discipline, compliance and service excellence across organisational change and strategic initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of 10 People Assist consultants and advisors, setting clear performance standards, embedding governance rhythms and uplifting capability, particularly across ER/IR and case management activities.

• Lead the ongoing embedding of the Tiered Service Model, ensuring clear escalation pathways, role clarity and disciplined service governance across Tier 0–2.

• Own, govern and optimise the end-to-end employee service model across the lifecycle, ensuring high-volume inquiries, onboarding, checks, changes and exits are delivered efficiently with appropriate escalation pathways.

• Oversee advisory and case management activities (performance processes, investigations, policy matters), ensuring sound judgement, compliant documentation and timely referral of complex matters to ER and Business Partners.

• Provide operational governance of enterprise agreements, coordinating payroll and HRIS impacts to ensure accurate, compliant execution of pay and conditions changes.

• Maintain compliance with employment legislation and regulatory obligations, ensuring audit-ready documentation, effective internal controls and disciplined risk management practices.

• Drive continuous improvement across HR operations, strengthening process standardisation, automation, HRIS governance (Workday and ServiceNow), service quality and operational efficiency.

About You

You bring a strong mix of people leadership, operational expertise, and a focus on coaching and continuous improvement.

• Proven experience leading or coaching multi-tiered HR support teams in complex or matrix environments

• Strong understanding of Australian ER/IR frameworks, including the Fair Work Act, employment legislation, enterprise agreements, and immigration compliance

• Experience operating within or leading HR shared services transformation or operating model change.

• Demonstrated experience in business process improvement, continuous improvement, and change delivery

• Skilled user of HRIS platforms (ideally Workday) and service management systems (ServiceNow)

• Confident in data-driven decision making and workforce reporting

• Strong stakeholder engagement and vendor management capability

• Tertiary qualifications in Human Resources, Business, or a related field

Working at APA

At APA we’re committed to fostering a safe and inclusive workplace where you can achieve your best. We’ll provide you with access to targeted career development programs, competitive remuneration, employee benefits, flexible working arrangements, and wellbeing programs. We also have an inclusive parental leave policy providing 18 weeks leave including superannuation to support parents at work and in life.

We employ more than 2700 people across Australia and are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture, where everyone feels safe, valued, and trusted to do their best every day.

We are APA

APA Group is a leading Australian energy infrastructure business.

We proudly own, operate and manage a diverse $26 billion portfolio of gas, electricity, solar and wind assets which deliver essential services to communities and customers across Australia. And we own more than 15,000 kilometres of gas pipelines which deliver energy to households and businesses across every corner of Australia.

As the partner of choice in delivering infrastructure solutions for the energy transition, we’re focused on bundled remote grid energy solutions, electricity and gas transmission, and future energy, including hydrogen and carbon capture and storage.

Our customer centric approach means we understand our customers and offer them reliable, innovative, and cost-effective energy solutions that support their decarbonisation ambitions.

We are committed to securing Australia’s energy future by delivering infrastructure solutions for Australia’s energy transition and supporting the decarbonisation ambitions of our customers and communities.

Join our team and be part of securing Australia’s energy future. We’d love to hear from you.

APA is an equal opportunity employer. The safety, health and wellbeing our people, community and environment a priority. We embrace diversity in our people to ensure our workforce is representative of the communities that we operate in.

Applicants must be eligible to work in Australia to be considered.

This vacancy works with critical APA data, systems or infrastructure and candidates are subject to background vetting (including Police checks) before & during employment.

Role closes Thursday, 12 March 2026. Role Reference Number JR3997

APA Group will not accept unsolicited resumes from recruitment agencies.

We will contact successful candidates after the closing date.