About Us
HEQS is an Australian family-owned group with over 20 years' experience across wholesale, real estate and export. Our trading arm is a market leader in the furniture and white goods appliance industry, importing and distributing through warehouses in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, alongside our commercial, hospitality and export operations. We're growing fast, with multiple sales, operations and warehouse roles in motion across NSW, VIC and QLD.
Why This Role Exists
Today, hiring and people matters are split across our Managing Director and senior managers - they write the ads, screen the applications, book the interviews, sit through the ones that were never going to work, handle the intake, and walk new starters through their first day.
We're consolidating the local, judgement-heavy HR work into this one role, supported by two offshore HR assistants who carry the routine administration. The measure of success is that management spends materially less time on HR administration, while managers still retain the technical and commercial assessment appropriate to their roles.
The Role
Part time, 3 days a week onsite at Smithfield - Monday, Wednesday and Friday, approximately 24 hours - reporting directly to the Managing Director and supervising two offshore HR assistants.
On the hours, plainly: the days are fixed at Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so interviews, inductions and employee matters can be planned around them and everyone here knows when HR is on site. We would rather have the right experienced person three focused days a week than the wrong person full time.
Your offshore team works five to six days a week, so the function runs every day even when you're not in. Nothing stalls on the days you're off - candidates still get responses, paperwork still moves, records still get kept. You set the standard and the priorities; they keep it running.
This is not a role for someone starting out in HR, and it isn't a fit for HR experience gained entirely outside Australia. You'll be making real calls on Australian employment contracts, terminations and entitlements from week one.
Lead the HR function
Set priorities and allocate work to two offshore HR assistants, quality-check what comes back, and hold them to deadlines around payroll cut-offs and start dates. You're their manager, not a colleague who sends them tasks. You'll also lift their capability over time, particularly on screening, which is newer ground for them.
Recruitment: brief to shortlist to interview to offer
Agree the genuine must-haves with the hiring manager before a role goes to market, and set the criteria your offshore team filters against. The offshore team completes the first-pass sift and the scheduling; you quality-check the shortlist and conduct first-round interviews where HR qualification adds value. For warehouse, administration and junior operational roles, you own the first round. For BDM, senior sales, category, finance and other specialist roles, the hiring manager retains technical and commercial assessment and final interview involvement. You coordinate reference checks, candidate communication and the run to a signed offer.
Onboarding, induction and training
Your offshore team handles onboarding paperwork and system setup. You own everything that happens in the building - a proper Day One, site and safety orientation, introductions, a clear briefing on policies and expectations, first-week check-ins and 30/60/90-day reviews. This currently falls on our line managers and you'll be taking it off them. You'll also deliver inductions and refreshers yourself, and build repeatable induction materials so the process stops living in someone's head.
Offboarding, compliance and employee relations
We don't have a properly documented exit process, and we want one. You'll design it - notice periods, final pay and entitlements handled correctly under the Fair Work Act and NES, exit interviews, equipment and access return, records retention, clean handover to payroll - then own it every time it's used.
And you'll be the bridge between management and our people: the person on the floor staff actually talk to, surfacing problems early rather than after they've escalated, translating management decisions into something that lands, and sitting in on the difficult conversations on both sides.
About You - Essential
Minimum 5 years' HR experience gained in Australia. Genuine, hands-on Australian HR experience, not offshore or international, and not a graduate background. You need to know the Fair Work Act, NES entitlements and the Australian termination process already.
Disciplined with compliance and documentation. This is as much a records-and-process job as a people job. Contracts, entitlements, termination paperwork, personnel files and the exit process all have to be right, written down and defensible.
Experience designing and documenting an HR process from scratch, not just following one someone else built.
Outstanding communication. You'll be credible with both management and the floor: able to deliver an unwelcome message clearly, hear what someone isn't saying, and keep confidence on both sides.
Demonstrated full-cycle recruitment - job ad to signed contract, not just resume screening.
Proven experience conducting first-round interviews yourself and presenting a qualified shortlist to hiring managers.
Experience supervising or leading a small team, and accountable for their output.
Confident delivering inductions and training in person.
Comfortable working independently in a fast-paced SME with high concurrent recruitment activity.
Available Monday, Wednesday and Friday onsite in Smithfield.
Current valid work rights in Australia.
About You - Highly regarded
Experience managing remote or offshore team members.
Experience in a family-owned or small-to-medium business, not just corporate HR.
Experience handling grievances, workplace conflict or sensitive employee-relations matters.
Background in retail, wholesale, logistics or a similarly fast-moving industry.
What Success Looks Like
Month 1 - You've taken handover of the agreed HR and recruitment responsibilities, set selection criteria with managers, and trained the offshore team to filter and administer recruitment to your standard.
Month 3 - Routine screening, scheduling and HR administration have moved away from managers. HR provides qualified shortlists and conducts appropriate first-round interviews, while managers focus on technical and commercial assessment and final hiring decisions.
Month 6 - Our exit process is documented, compliant and in use; induction materials exist and are repeatable; and staff know who to come to before a problem becomes a formal one.
What We Offer
$43 - $50 per hour plus superannuation, depending on experience.
Fixed, predictable days - Monday, Wednesday and Friday, approximately 24 hours a week.
Real ownership of Australian HR compliance, employee relations and our exit process.
A direct line to the Managing Director, and two offshore assistants working five to six days a week to carry the administrative load - the function keeps running on your days off.
Interviews on a fixed weekly schedule you control.
A stable, family-owned business trading over 20 years, in a genuine growth phase.
Staff discounts across our furniture and appliance range.
Interested?
Send your resume with a short note on one full-cycle recruitment process you personally ran, start to finish, in an Australian workplace - including how you decided which candidates were worth the hiring manager's time. That's what we'll read first.
Our Commitment to Inclusion
HEQS Wholesale Group acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we live and work, and pays our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We are an equal-opportunity employer and warmly encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We also welcome and value applications from veterans and ex-Australian Defence Force personnel.
Pay: $43.00 – $50.00 per hour
Expected hours: 24.0 per week
Benefits:
Work Location: In person
