Performance & Talent Development Consultant - (Interim / Freelance)

A global retail brand is strengthening its performance culture and they need an experienced consultant to help them with that. Your mission: translate an existing job grading system into a practical competency framework that managers can actually use. Robust enough to ensure fairness and consistency, simple enough to apply day-to-day.

In this role you will help define what good performance looks like across different job families and grades, ensuring that expectations are consistent, transparent and connected to the level of responsibility, scope, autonomy, complexity and impact expected at each grade. The outcome should support fairer performance conversations, clearer goal setting, and stronger alignment between role expectations, the values and business impact

💼 What you'll be working on:

✨ Review the existing job architecture, grading system and job descriptions to map how roles are currently structured and described.
✨ Identify patterns, gaps and inconsistencies across job families and grades, and where expectations should be common versus tailored by function or leadership track.
✨ Define a competency mapping approach that distinguishes core competencies, functional competencies, leadership expectations and company values.
✨ Translate each job grade into clear expectation levels, described by scope, autonomy, complexity, collaboration, decision-making and impact.
✨ Create behavioral indicators for each competency level, written in plain language for managers and employees.
✨ Validate the framework with HR, business leaders, managers and subject-matter experts.
✨ Recommend how to embed the framework into performance reviews, goal setting, hiring, development, succession planning and career conversations.
✨ Advise on visualization, tooling and governance so the framework stays relevant over time.

🧠 What you’ll bring:

✅ Proven experience designing job architecture, job grading/leveling, competency or career frameworks in complex international organizations.
✅ Strong track record connecting job grades, role expectations and performance management into one coherent system. 

✅ Experienced in reviewing and synthesizing large sets of job descriptions into clear, level-differentiated expectations.
✅ You've done this in a global or regional matrix environment across different functions.
✅ You can work with ambiguity and existing materials, building on what's there rather than starting from scratch.
✅ Sharp stakeholder management: you align HR, Rewards, Talent and business leaders without losing momentum.
✅ Excellent writing skills: you turn complex concepts into language managers actually want to read.
✅ Strong understanding of performance management, leadership expectations, behavioral indicators and how to translate competencies into observable evidence.

👉 What you can expect.

📍 Location: Amsterdam | Hybrid
📅 Start: asap
⏰ Hours: 32-40
📄 Contract: end of year with option to extend

Interested? Apply below👇