People & Culture Manager (DACH) (m/f/d)

THE MISSION

At Unicorn, we believe hospitality is more than a service — it is a promise. We are the operational backbone behind some of Europe's most forward-thinking hotel brands: the partner guests never see, but always feel. From spotless rooms to seamless remote check-ins, we deliver Hotel Operations-as-a-Service — housekeeping, maintenance, and guest operations — white-labelled under our partners' brands.

Our most important resource is our Unicorns — the people who deliver the standard in our partner hotels every single day. As the sole People & Culture person in the company, you own recruiting, labour law, and culture across all five operating markets — Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, and Sweden. You build the pipelines, secure the legal foundation, and shape the culture that sets us apart from interchangeable service providers. You report to the CEO and the COO and work closely with all Country GMs on a dotted reporting line.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

• Recruiting & Pipeline: Group-wide recruiting strategy, employer brand, and talent pipelines across all five markets. Hands-on for senior and key hires; framework and support for the Operations Managers in day-to-day recruiting — Agentur für Arbeit, referral programmes, local networks.

• Onboarding & Training Framework: You set the framework — career ladders from cleaner to Objektleiter to Operations Manager, the standards that define what good looks like at each step, plus templates, checklists, and tracking. Operations Managers and Regional Operations Managers deliver the content on the ground; you enable them to do it quickly, consistently, and across markets.

• Labour Law & Compliance: You keep us legally clean in every market — with a focus on Germany and in close coordination with local advisors in NO, NL, UK and SE. Employment contracts, works council agreements, terminations, data privacy, and health and safety.

• Employee Relations: Grievances, disciplinary processes, and difficult conversations — you handle them cleanly, quickly, and fairly. Approachable for the crew, a clear sparring partner for leadership.

• Culture & Engagement: You turn Experience, Enthusiasm, and Energy into lived daily practice. Engagement initiatives, pulse surveys, cross-country connection — even in a decentralised, deskless workforce.

• People Analytics: Turnover, time-to-hire, time-to-productivity, training completion. You give the CEO, COO, and Country GMs the clarity on the people side they can rely on.

• Country GM Partnership: Dotted reporting line to all Country GMs. You are their first point of contact for local people topics — and they are your eyes and ears on the ground.

• Light Systems: As the sole P&C person, you build the lightest system that works. ATS, HRIS, and templates used sensibly, clean process, scalable but never heavy.

WHO YOU ARE

You bring around 4 to 7 years of People & Culture experience, ideally in a multi-country and deskless-workforce setup — hospitality, facility management, retail, or logistics. You have led recruiting in a tight labour market and bring deep German labour law expertise.

• Recruiter mentality: You build pipelines, pick up the phone proactively, and close hires. You don't wait for applications — you go hunt talent.

• Strong in labour law: Deep knowledge of German labour law; familiar with European jurisdictions. Confident working with employment lawyers, works councils, and labour authorities.

• Multi-country experienced: You have worked across several countries in parallel and know how to balance group-wide standards with local adaptation.

• Hands-on, not heavy: You build the lightest system that works. You are not a consultant — you are a maker. You sort the topic, not pass it on.

• Empathetic and clear: You handle difficult conversations cleanly and fairly. Approachable for the crew, clear in substance, without drama.

• Tech-comfortable: HRIS, ATS, people dashboards. Data over gut — you decide on facts.

• Linguistically versatile: Fluent business German for German labour law and the largest workforce, English as the group working language.

WHY UNICORN

We are building the next generation of hospitality services — with both feet on the ground. We are founder-owned and profitable, which means we chase margins, quality, and efficiency, not headlines. You'll find a crew that takes pride in getting the details right, that treats every guest interaction as a promise kept, and that believes the best companies are built by people who genuinely care. Whoever finds and develops the talent and keeps the legal foundation clean builds the very ground everything else stands on.