Senior HR Associate (5-month maternity leave cover)

About Apollo Agriculture
Apollo Agriculture is a leading agri-fintech platform empowering small-scale farmers across Africa to increase their profits and farm more sustainably. Apollo uses artificial intelligence and automated operations to unlock the massive, untapped small-scale farming market. Apollo enables farmers to access the optimized financing, high-quality farm products, expert digital advice, and risk management solutions they need to invest and scale their businesses. Apollo grew paying customers over 2.5x in 2023 to over 200K small-scale farmers in Kenya and Zambia, increasing revenue to nearly $30M with robust unit economics. Apollo partners with key global agriculture companies like Bayer, OCP and Yara, and is backed by Anthemis, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Flourish Ventures, Leaps by Bayer, and Softbank Vision Fund. Apollo’s team brings together technology, credit and operations experience from The Climate Corporation, Google, Capital One, Revolut, and One Acre Fund.

About the Role 

We are looking for a strategic, creative, and self-driven person to own key HR initiatives. This is a 5-month maternity leave cover (beginning in January)  with the opportunity for a full-time role for the right candidate. You will bring fresh insights and a relentless drive for perfection to all of Apollo’s current HR processes, including onboarding/offboarding, compliance, policy maintenance, and payroll and benefits administration, among others. You will also support recruitment processes from time to time. You will ensure that Apollo’s HR practices can scale as our business becomes more complex, and you will keep Apollo’s mission to maximize profits for small-scale farmers at the heart of everything you do. 

Key responsibilities

• Proactively identify and take ownership of key HR Operations across all Apollo entities
• Support the HR Ops Team to manage the full employee experience, from onboarding to exit management, ensuring all processes are performed in a timely, efficient, and meticulously documented manner.
• Support payroll administration, statutory filings, and reporting in collaboration with the Finance team for any requested entity.
• Implement a structured approach to benefits administration across Apollo entities, ensuring alignment with best practices.
• Independently seek and utilize information to resolve complex HR issues and compliance matters.
• Lead policy updates and conduct reviews of the employee handbook, ensuring it addresses employees across all entities and adheres to the latest HR updates in national policies.
• Proactively ensure legal compliance across all Apollo entities by actively seeking and leveraging pertinent information in collaboration with company lawyers, as well as your own independent research, and update the necessary documentation accordingly
• Deeply understand every detail of existing HR processes and policies and champion improvements.
• Meticulously document key processes, and ensure that documentation is accessible and easily searchable by relevant staff. 
• Demonstrate an interest in data analytics. Capable of deriving actionable insights from data. 
• Quick to find or develop systems/tools to streamline processes and enhance the overall employee experience.
• Assist in implementing HR programs, collaborating with the team and staff to identify and establish efficient and scalable process improvements.
• Challenge traditional practices, bring fresh perspectives, and collaborate to drive innovation and performance enhancements.
• Participate in the implementation of HR initiatives, working with the team and staff to help identify and create streamlined and scalable process improvements across the function
• Use existing tech tools to create efficiency and relentlessly advocate for new ways that technology can increase the scalability and efficiency of HR processes. 
• Provide leadership, guidance, and mentorship to the Human Resource Assistant, ensuring effective execution of assigned tasks and supporting their professional development.
• Work collaboratively with team members to deliver all HR operations activities, ensuring effective delegation, clear direction, and strong operational coordination.

Candidate profile 

• You don’t have to be an HR expert, but you should be passionate about HR and have 3 or more years of relevant experience
• You don’t want to do things the way they have been done – you want to find ways to improve them 
• You’ve worked in a medium to large-sized fast-paced start-up (or a similarly fast-paced context) 
• You are a stickler for process, and you balance this with inquisitiveness, curiosity, and a desire to collaborate with your team and across Apollo
• When faced with a problem, your brain can’t help but generate solutions.
• You want to join a team of passionate people who love what they do
• You care deeply about enabling Apollo to deliver its mission to help farmers increase their profits.
• You own your mistakes and see them as an opportunity to grow and improve. 
• You love a challenge, and you love the feeling of owning outcomes. You have a deep sense of accountability.  
• You’re an excellent communicator – you’re comfortable writing documents that clearly explain the context for a given challenge, as well as your recommendations and next steps. 
• You love and actively solicit critical feedback on your performance because you know this will help you grow
• You love to use data to conclude. 
• You maintain the highest ethical standards, particularly around maintaining confidentiality
• You may not check every qualification on this list, but you’re confident you could still excel in this role. You are resilient when unexpected challenges come your way, because you know they will! You’re calm and steady in a crisis and set an example for others to follow