Organisational Effectiveness & People Business Partner
Date: 4 Oct 2026
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, AU
Company: Australian Football League
Join the team shaping the future of Australia’s game.
This is your chance to do work that has real impact, in an organisation that moves fast, aims high and plays a meaningful role in the lives of millions across the country through football. Every role at the AFL helps progress the game, so more people can love it, connect with it and see what is possible through it.
The opportunity
Help shape how our people and teams work, perform and thrive by delivering initiatives that strengthen the AFL’s organisational effectiveness and support the AFL People Plan.
Based at AFL House in Melbourne, this role combines an enterprise-wide organisational effectiveness remit with dedicated People Business Partner support for selected business units. You will lead work across change, workforce planning, culture, engagement, organisational design, performance and ways of working, while providing practical and trusted people advice to senior leaders.
Working closely with People Business Partners and specialists across the People team, you will help build a high-performing, future-ready organisation capable of delivering its strategic priorities.
What you’ll own
You will turn people strategy into practical, sustainable initiatives while partnering with leaders to address workforce priorities, improve organisational performance and create a better employee experience.
You’ll add value through:
- Supporting the development and implementation of the AFL People Strategy
- Leading complex people change projects from scoping and diagnosis through to implementation, adoption and evaluation
- Designing and delivering strategic workforce planning, organisational design and team effectiveness initiatives
- Evolving ways of working to support performance, collaboration, productivity and employee experience
- Helping leaders redesign work, simplify processes and remove barriers, including supporting the adoption of AI and contemporary work practices
- Translating emerging workforce trends, data and feedback into practical organisational effectiveness initiatives
- Leading employee engagement, culture improvement and action-planning activities
- Developing and continuously improving the AFL’s performance framework
- Providing practical, commercially grounded people advice and coaching to executives and senior leaders within selected business units
- Supporting structure reviews, role design, performance, employee relations, recruitment, talent, succession and engagement priorities
- Connecting specialist People expertise with business needs and identifying and escalating material people risks early
- Establishing clear governance and measures to evaluate adoption, workforce effectiveness and organisational impact
What you’ll bring
- Demonstrated experience leading complex people and organisational change projects from design through to implementation and evaluation
- Experience diagnosing organisational challenges and designing practical interventions across structure, accountabilities, culture, capability and ways of working
- Experience providing broad People Business Partner or HR advisory support, ideally alongside an enterprise organisational development remit
- Strong project and change management capability, including governance, stakeholder engagement, milestone and dependency management, implementation and adoption measurement
- Experience partnering with executives, senior leaders and cross-functional teams in a complex, multi-stakeholder environment
- Enterprise and systems thinking, supported by strong organisational diagnosis and problem-framing capability
- Sound judgement and the ability to constructively challenge and influence senior stakeholders
- Advanced facilitation capability, including experience working with leadership teams and navigating sensitive or complex matters
- The ability to interpret workforce data, qualitative insights and feedback and translate them into practical recommendations
- Strong delivery focus and commercial judgement, with the ability to navigate ambiguity and competing priorities
- Clear written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to turn complex concepts into practical frameworks, decisions and actions
- Relevant tertiary qualifications in organisational development, organisational psychology, human resources, behavioural science, business or a related discipline are desirable
- Professional accreditation in change management, facilitation, coaching or organisation design would be advantageous
Why you’ll love being on our team
At the AFL, you will be part of a values-led team that aims high, backs each other and brings energy, care and integrity to work that matters. This is a place where people play to win, play as one team and play with passion, while always staying grounded in fairness, inclusion and respect. We work hard, support each other and create the conditions for our people to grow, perform and thrive.
What you can look forward to:
- Play The Day Your Way, our flexible approach to working life, built to support you on game day and every day
- My Development, with coaching, mentoring, on-the-job learning and formal development to help you keep building your game
- Play Well, our health and wellbeing programme designed to support a healthy body, healthy mind and healthy workplace
- My Benefits, giving you access to a range of partner offers and discounts through our AFL Corporate Partners
- AFL Silver Memberships for permanent team members, so you can enjoy the action at Marvel Stadium and the MCG with family and friends
- 6 months paid primary parental leave with no qualification period for permanent team members
Everyone has a place here
Our game brings people together, and we want our workplace to do the same.
We are committed to building a culture of belonging and an environment where people feel respected, included and able to thrive, and where diversity of background, experience and perspective makes us stronger.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are encouraged to apply.
Whether you’re a footy fan or new to our game, we welcome everyone to apply. We know great candidates don’t always tick every box. If this role excites you, we encourage you to apply, even if your experience doesn’t perfectly match the job description.
The AFL is committed to promoting and protecting the safety and wellbeing of children and young people in our care. Please note, we undertake several screening processes to ensure this commitment is upheld, this includes ensuring the successful candidate to this position holds a valid employee Working with Children/Vulnerable People check and a satisfactory criminal history record check.
Ready to play your part?
Apply now