Senior HR Officer

BURN · Blantyre, Malawi

Posted November 4, 2026Listing expires November 11, 2026

About BURN

BURN Manufacturing designs, manufactures and distributes clean cookstoves, with operations in ten African markets. In Malawi our work runs through employees, short-term workers supplied by a labour-hire agency, and a network of commission-based sales agents engaged directly and through agencies.

About the role

You will be BURN’s HR lead in Malawi. You will run the full employee lifecycle for our staff and keep us compliant with Malawian law. You will also own the people side of our agent network, making sure every agent is onboarded on the right terms, documents and systems before they start selling.

Duties & Responsibilities

Employee HR operations

• Run in-country recruitment end to end, from approved hiring requests to adverts, shortlisting, interviews, references and offers.
• Issue contracts and job descriptions from approved templates; track probation, fixed-term expiry and renewal dates, and send notices on time.
• Prepare monthly payroll inputs (joiners, leavers, changes, leave, attendance) and check payroll with Group Payroll before sign-off.
• Run induction, probation reviews and the performance cycle with line managers.
• Handle grievances, disciplinary cases and exits fairly and on the record, working with Legal on complex cases.
• Manage the labour-hire agency that supplies short-term workers: check its costing of statutory add-ons, its headcount and its invoices.
• Keep personnel files complete and audit-ready, and employee data accurate in BURN’s ERP and HR systems.

Agent workstreams

• Approve agent onboarding. Before any agent is activated, confirm verified identity, a signed contract on an approved template, the right engagement route (direct or agency) and verified mobile money details. Hold any onboarding that falls short.
• Review new or changed commission schemes for HR and legal risk before launch, with Commercial.
• Watch for employment-like terms in agent and team-leader arrangements, and escalate them.
• Reconcile agency headcounts and invoices against BURN records every month, and keep agency agreements and reconciliations on file.
• Support the in-country rollout of the agent onboarding platform: train sales teams and agencies, test it and report issues.
• Handle agent offboarding, disputes and complaints in line with their contracts.

Compliance in Malawi