Legal Counsel, Employment Legal Apac

**About the opportunity**:
**Department Description**

The Group Employment Legal Services team is a integral part of the Group Employment Legal, Conduct and Privacy function which sits within the General Counsel area. The Group Employment Legal Services team provides the full breadth of employment legal services across the business and is globally situated.

The Head of Group Employment Legal, Conduct and Privacy leads the Group Employment Legal Services team and is based in Singapore. She is supported by an Employment Legal Director who is based in the UK and is responsible for supporting the business across the UK, Ireland and Continental Europe. The team also comprises a Employment Practices Policy and Process role based out of the UK.

The primary objective of this team is to provide legal advice on employment related matters to the global HR and business functions, delivering pragmatic solutions and managing legal and regulatory risk and compliance across the range of employment legal issues from employee impacted regulatory change, workplace privacy and data protection compliance, business change, including mergers and acquisitions and outsourcing, reward and fair pay, as well as individual ER matters.

The Group Employment Legal Services team plays a critical role in managing and investigating employee conduct concerns and whistleblowing issues, ensuring consistency of treatment at a global level working closely with the Internal Investigations team.

In addition, Group Employment Legal partners closely with the Employee Engagement team in designing and implementing new and progressive policies to enhance diversity and inclusion as well as employee wellbeing and experience of working at Fidelity.

**Purpose of the Role**

This role has a broad spectrum of responsibilities and will be required to work on legal issues in a commercial and pragmatic way such that legal risk is minimized whilst achieving optimum outcomes for both the business and the individual which is in line with the Fidelity values and behaviors.

**Key Responsibilities**
- Providing legal advice to the APAC region on day to day matters such as grievances, disciplinaries, work place privacy and data protection matters, potential litigation issues, changes to terms and conditions, whistle-blowing, restructure initiatives, redundancy programmes and performance issues.
- Conducting and managing litigious matters and liaising with senior management to ensure they are kept informed at strategic points in the process. Managing negotiations and engaging with external counsel where necessary.
- Providing regular updates to the HR Generalists on developments in employment law and related financial services regulation relevant to their jurisdiction.
- Facilitate the provisions of Respect in the Workplace awareness training to managers.
- Reviewing and drafting amendments to local country Employee Handbooks to reflect changes in the law and FIL policy.
- Drafting policies and standard template documents to support the HR function and the Business working with the support of the Employment Legal process and policy role.
- Managing relationships with external law firms.
- Assisting the Employment Legal Director in the UK with local expertise in relation to cross border mergers and acquisitions, outsourcing arrangements, global workplace privacy initiatives and financial services regulation support.
- Assisting in the compiling and provision of reports.
- Contributing to the overall strategy and goal agenda for the Employment Legal Services team.

**Experience and Qualifications Required**
- Qualified lawyer with strong technical knowledge and experience of advising on employment law issues across APAC.
- Mandarin language skills are preferable.
- The ability to deliver legal advice that is both tactical and strategic, expressing complex legal concepts in an easily understood way. Negotiates well, listens actively and challenges appropriately.
- A self-starter who is able to think laterally and handle a wide portfolio of matters at any one time, prioritizing under pressure and managing client expectations. Can work autonomously but escalates when appropriate.
- A credible personal presence with the ability to instil confidence.
- Able to build strong relationships with peers and business counterparts, and enjoys working collaboratively within a team.
- Demonstrates ability to take tasks on using initiative, providing practical ideas and suggestions.
- Experience of working in a global matrixed organization is preferable
- Good knowledge of Microsoft tools, particularly Outlook, Excel, Word and PowerPoint

**About you**:
**About Fidelity International**:
We’ve been helping our clients plan and save for the futures they want for over 50 years. From more than 25 locations around the world, we provide investment services and retirement expertise to 2.5 million clients - everyone from central banks and financial institutions to wealth managers and pr