CARLOS VEGA
HR Professional
San Jose, Costa Rica
Summary
Passionate HR Professional, adept at improving employee relations, enable engagement, increase understanding of legal requirements, effectively motivate employees and strengthen relationships at all levels. Articulate and hands-on professional with strengths in program management, process improvement and data analytics. Forward-thinking, results-driven and focused on facilitating relationships and collaboration between diverse employees and departments in order to accomplish common goals with a continuous improvement mentality and growth mindset.
Overview
18
18
years of professional experience
2
2
Languages
Work History
Corporate Workplace Incident Manager
Amazon
11.2022 - Current
- Responsible of leading investigations and risk assessment processes for the LATAM, US and EMEA regions, including Costa Rica, for Amazon corporate locations
- Investigations include cases related to harassment, workplace violence, discrimination, suicidal ideation, mistreatment, unethical behaviors and fraud amongst others
- Leading monthly business update meetings with business Directors to provide visibility on relevant trends identified YTD that could be addressed through internal initiatives and/or projects to mitigate areas of improvement
- Recurring connects with different business areas such as Legal, HSE and Security amongst others, to ensure integrity of the business and its people through best practices and proper policy application and follow through
- Education for management on how to handle situations related to employee behavioral issues that have a negative impact on team environment and/or performance
- Ensure investigation strategies are aligned with best practices and proper control points are documented for each process
- Responsible of ensuring investigations are aligned with local legislations, company policies and internal guidelines
- Ambassador of labor legislation, local processes and internal policies across the LATAM region.
Senior Human Resources Business Partner
Smith + Nephew
08.2021 - 11.2022
- Establish conversations with business leaders to understand current people state across the organization and develop initiatives as needed pertaining compensation, attrition, staffing and engagement amongst others
- Conduct salary reviews in conjunction with Compensation & Benefits to ensure internal and external equity compared to local market
- Conduct reviews for internal policies to ensure company values, mission and vision are reflected in the current state of the business
- Develop initiatives for engagement based on inputs received from conversations with business leaders and Gallup survey results
- Responsible for mapping critical skills across the organization and develop retention strategies for high-potential employees
- Conduct employee relations investigations in compliance with internal policies and local legislations in partnership with pertaining legal counselors supporting the operation
- Conduct meetings for issuance of disciplinary actions, performance improvement plans and/or terminations
- Establish action plans for management based on trends related to internal employee relations situations identified across the organization
- Engage in communication with local entities such as CINDE to leverage market and national data beneficial to the organization
- Communicate in business townhalls current strategies and initiatives developed by HR.
Americas Employee Relations Manager (Promotion)
Mondelez Business Services
10.2015 - 07.2021
- Responsible of conducting investigations for compliance cases raised in North America and Latin America – including Costa Rica
- Investigations include cases related to harassment, discrimination, mistreatment, unethical behaviors, fraud, theft, and social media amongst others
- Point of contact for all North America scope cases, strategies, and communications
- Responsible for leading monthly meetings with North America stakeholders to provide visibility on areas of opportunity and/or highlights of the operation
- Lead of the Costa Rica Communications Team responsible for the local communications strategy regarding information that needs to be communicated to the Costa Rica population, including but not limited to topics related to HR, Occupational Health, Medical, Payroll and internal initiatives
- On-site point of contact with to align on areas of opportunity for initiatives to improve processes between Employee Relations and other departments
- Local onboarding lead, responsible of facilitating onboarding for new hires and implement new strategies to the current state of the onboarding to continuously improve the new hires’ overall onboarding experience and - new format was implemented for remote sessions due to COVID-19
- Co-founder of the site’s “Employee Council” which in conjunction with the local Leadership Team, is responsible for following up on results of the company’s engagement survey and take on initiatives to engage employees and mitigate areas of opportunity raised in the survey - Responsible for training new hires in the Employee Relations team on all aspects of the operation including discipline, performance and compliance for North America and Latin America
- Leader of an efficiencies project for Employee Relations in conjunction with the Continuous Improvement team, that allowed to consolidate information from cases handled, mitigate reporting issues, and automate trends, KPI’s and business insights - Coordinator of the BCP (Business Continuity Plan) for Costa Rica, to ensure operational continuity in case of disruptive events affecting the organization
- Project lead for the Exit Interview process that is currently being revised within the organization.
Americas Employee Relations Specialist (Promotion)
Mondelez Business Services
- Responsible for Employee Relations case handling, including proper documentation and case strategy, for discipline, job abandonment and performance incidents across the Americas (NA / LA), while evaluating case complexity and priority
- Ensures investigation strategy is in line with best practices and proper control points are documented for each process - Responsible to assure Employee Relations investigations are in line with local legislations, company policies and internal guidelines
- In charge of handling employee misconduct incidents and employee complaints
- Administration of disciplinary actions up to and including terminations - Responsible of coaching and guidance to managers as it relates to performance issues
- Ambassador of labor legislation, local processes and internal policies
- Owner of quarterly Q&A checks and reports on findings and recommendations
- Partners with HRMs / HRBLs, Legal, Business Integrity and Global Security throughout the Employee Relations process, as needed - Ensures processes are followed consistently, fairly and equitable treatment is applied
- Practices ER Principles (Fair, Corrective, Timely, Consistent, Progressive, Safety, Due Process) throughout management of all cases and helps stakeholders understand their importance.
Document Management / HR Procurement Lead (Promotion)
Mondelez Business Services
- Lead of the NA/LA Document Management and HR Procurement team within the HR Operations organizations, managing a team of 12 people
- Migration of the e-filing and Master Shopper (procurement) roles for all countries
- KPOC for process defects during the hyper care phase of the process migration
- Supervise processing of purchase orders to avoid errors in payments that would impact vendors
- Understanding of the procurement governance and structure in NA and LA
- Communication with vendors to provide status of currently placed orders and analyzing potential new purchases that would need to be processed
- Direct contact with the Accounts Payable organization to assure timely processing and payment of invoices
- Understanding of the different filing policies across all countries to assure correct processing of records
- Develop and encourage Continuous Improvement key process initiatives within the team in order to increase productivity
- Present performance metrics to Regional and Local Management for current status of the operation while forecasting upcoming events that would impact business productivity in the short term
- Actively communicate with other work streams within the organization to assure correct flow of processes and avoid impact in performance metrics
- Assure process accuracy, SLA & KPI’s compliance and internal policies by performing quality revisions and Gemba Walks
- Develop and establish trainings for new hires joining the team
- Create and maintain a healthy and productive work environment within the team by encouraging communication, honesty and engagement.
HR Planning and Analysis Specialist
Mondelez Business Services
- Development of staffing plan in conjunction with HR and Finance team according to business needs and financial status of the organization
- Control of people and non-people costs based on current plan and provide suggestions and scenarios to local leadership team in order to increase cost efficiency and improve people management
- Control point for HR and Financial data (i.e., cost centers, functions, etc.) for headcount and purchases (cost center owner) to assure charges are properly reflected on all systems and avoid discrepancies that could impact the organization
- Presentation of performance results to management on a regular basis to assure information is cascaded down appropriately and prompt planning is put into place
- Planning in conjunction with the Finance and HR teams in order to put together upcoming year’s budget based on current state needs and zero-based budget policies.
Business Analyst (Project Planning)
Emerson Costa Rica
01.2014 - 09.2015
- In charge of analyzing the saleable hours and headcount performance in the six Power and Water Global Engineering Centers, located in: Cluj (Romania), Chelyabinsk (Russia), Manila (Philippines), Xi’an (China), New Delhi (India) and Costa Rica
- Recurring reviews with engineering center Directors to analyze metrics and proactively point out possible pitfalls that might be encountered on following periods
- Development of planning and budgeting initiatives to increase effectiveness and efficiency in headcount throughout all engineering centers
- Development of a Productivity Tool Dashboard to standardize processes across all the centers leading to knowledge increase, hence an increase in effectiveness of the processes
- Presentation of executive briefings to Directors and World Area VP regarding performance of engineering centers on each period of the fiscal year
- Setting of Engineering Centers Objectives for fiscal year 2015 which required detailed discussions with Engineering Centers Director to determine what the business needs are, consequently establishing the objectives plan currently in place
- Provide input to Engineering Center Leads and Director to propose strategic changes and/or new initiatives to be implemented on a quarterly basis
- Establish variability tool for PWS projects enabling to determine changes in budget and actual costs incurred throughout a project’s life cycle.
HR Specialist
Citi Bank
06.2012 - 12.2013
- Responsible for leading the migration of non-Employee population to PeopleSoft Management system
- Creation of job descriptions for US-based positions within Citi Shared Services in US
- Revision of employees’ profiles in order to determine eligibility for future openings
- Over-the-phone interviews with applicants while providing feedback to US HR Business Partners
- Report creation for tracking the non-Employee variance each month
- Direct contact with vendors for contract reviews
- Worked with the Human Resources in Costa Rica to improve the Employee General Information database (Citi For You) in order to respond frequently asked questions to employees.
Resource Deployment Manager (Promotion)
IBM
- In charge of the IBM SAP based projects within the Cross-Industry Sector (Communications, Distribution and Public) in the United States working with twenty different accounts
- Responsible of working together with accounts Project Executives and Sector Managers to ensure each project is being staffed promptly and by the right candidates given their skills, rates, and availability
- Work with IBM Core vendors when candidates cannot be found internally
- In charge of 100 IBM practitioners supervising their work and making sure they are always staffed in projects to avoid bandwidth and to assure all projects meet their deadlines
- In charge of creating new openings for work within several IBM projects in the US and India, as well as following up on these openings and assure they are filled properly by the right candidates
- Review CVs and candidate profiles to make sure all candidates are being sorted out to the right projects
- Follow up on practitioner’s performance in projects assigned
- Constant communication with Sector Managers and other Deployment Managers across areas to provide status on the processes that are taking place while providing new ideas for improvement and partnership.
Payroll Administrator
IBM
- Process of salary payments for over 1000 employees from seven different Canadian divisions in the Dana Canada account
- Obtained the Fundamentals of Payroll Certification (requirement for all payroll staff in US and Canada)
- Consistent communications with Payroll Managers to ensure all processes are completed in the right manner and payroll is processed correctly with no or minimum errors
- Responsible of entering payments, deductions and garnishments, as applicable, for each employee within scope, in accordance to pertaining Canadian laws.
Customer Service Representative
Sykes
05.2006 - 01.2008
- Take calls from US citizens working for a diverse range of companies looking to obtain disability benefits
- Enter each caller’s information (medical, financial and personal) and using/understanding medical terms.
Education
Bachelor in Business Administration -
ULACIT
Costa Rica 05.2001 -
BA Post-graduate (Licenciatura) -
ULACIT
Costa Rica 05.2001 -
Bachelor in Statistics (In Progress) -
Universidad De Costa Rica
Costa Rica 05.2001 -
Fundamentals of Payroll Certification -
American Payroll Association
United States 05.2001 -
Mental Health First Aid Certification -
US Mental Health Association
United States 05.2001 -
Cognitive Interviewing Training -
EVOCAVI
United States 05.2001 -
Skills
HR background
Performance improvement strategies
Disciplinary action management
Misconduct procedures
Policy interpretation
Flexible and Adaptable
Active Listening
Interpersonal Communication
Educational Experience
- Post-graduate in Business Administration in ULACIT
- Bachelor´s Degree in Business Administration in ULACIT
- Bachelor´s Degree in Statistics in UCR (in progress)
- Fundamentals of Payroll Certification from the American Payroll Association
- Mental Health First Aid Certification from US National Mental Health Association
- Formally trained in Cognitive Interviewing Strategies
Country Of Origin
Costa Rica
Personal Information
ID Number: 1-1271-0899
Timeline
Corporate Workplace Incident Manager
Amazon
11.2022 - Current
Senior Human Resources Business Partner
Smith + Nephew
08.2021 - 11.2022
Americas Employee Relations Manager (Promotion)
Mondelez Business Services
10.2015 - 07.2021
Business Analyst (Project Planning)
Emerson Costa Rica
01.2014 - 09.2015
HR Specialist
Citi Bank
06.2012 - 12.2013
Customer Service Representative
Sykes
05.2006 - 01.2008
Bachelor in Business Administration -
ULACIT
05.2001 -
BA Post-graduate (Licenciatura) -
ULACIT
05.2001 -
Bachelor in Statistics (In Progress) -
Universidad De Costa Rica
05.2001 -
Fundamentals of Payroll Certification -
American Payroll Association
05.2001 -
Mental Health First Aid Certification -
US Mental Health Association
05.2001 -
Cognitive Interviewing Training -
EVOCAVI
05.2001 -
Americas Employee Relations Specialist (Promotion)
Mondelez Business Services
Document Management / HR Procurement Lead (Promotion)
Mondelez Business Services
HR Planning and Analysis Specialist
Mondelez Business Services
Resource Deployment Manager (Promotion)
IBM
Payroll Administrator
IBM