Team Lead - General HR Services Germany (m/f/d)

Team Lead - General HR Services Germany (m/f/d)

Location: Krefeld, DE

Outokumpu is a global leader in sustainable stainless steel, driven by operational excellence, continuous improvement, and a strong focus on data and efficiency.

To strengthen our HR Services organization in Germany, we are looking for a Team Lead who combines payroll expertise, structured thinking, and a passion for transformation.

Your role

You will lead the HR Services team (currently 7 FTE across Germany and Lithuania), ensuring reliable, high-quality delivery across the full employee lifecycle while actively improving how work gets done.

This is not just a service delivery role — it’s a leadership position focused on performance, standardization, and measurable impact. You will drive efficiency, reduce complexity, and use data, technology, and automation to continuously optimize HR operations in Germany.

What you will do

• Lead and develop a distributed HR Services team with clear performance expectations and KPIs
• Ensure accurate and timely HR administration, with strong alignment to payroll processes and timelines
• Act as a key interface to Payroll, ensuring data quality, compliance, and process efficiency
• Drive operational excellence through standardization, simplification, and “one best way” processes
• Identify and deliver improvements that reduce cost, cycle time, and manual effort
• Lead and contribute to HR transformation and other initiatives, including system optimization, automation, and AI use cases
• Use data and KPIs to track performance, identify gaps, and demonstrate value creation
• Strengthen process discipline, documentation, and governance across HR Services
• Foster a structured, accountable, and continuous improvement mindset within the team
• Ensure compliance with German labour law and data privacy standards

What we are looking for

• Experience leading HR Services / Shared Services teams
• Strong focus on HR administration and exposure to German payroll processes
• Proven track record in change management, process improvement, or HR transformation
• Experience working with HR systems (e.g., Successfactors, SAP) and interest in automation, digitalization, or AI
• Structured, data-driven mindset with a focus on KPIs, efficiency, and measurable outcomes
• Ability to simplify complex processes and drive standardization
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills
• Fluent in German and English

What we offer

• A leadership role with clear impact on performance and transformation
• Opportunity to shape modern, data-driven HR operations in Germany
• International and collaborative working environment

Outokumpu is also committed to full equality in compensation and is the first company in the stainless steel industry to receive the Fair Pay Workplace certification.