Senior People Advisor FTC (Mat Leave to October 2024)

This role is an excellent development opportunity for an individual looking to aspire to become an HR Business Partner. This role will support our current HR Business Partners with both project and cyclical people-related exercises and will be the sole employee relations point of contact for our stakeholders nationally. The role will be supported by our people services team who are the first point of contact for colleagues on queries relating to the employee life cycle and people administration
Please note, this position is maternity cover and therefore a 1-year fixed-term contract until 30t October 2024.

Key Responsibilities:

Working collaboratively with the wider people team to deliver exceptional service, this role will support employee relations nationally across the group as the first point of contact in a standalone role. This role also offers the opportunity to be involved in business partnering activities for our regional teams in Scotland and North England with support from our current and experienced team of HR Business Partners. This is a generalist role, meaning each day is different and the ability to effectively prioritise workload is key to success in the role. The duties and responsibilities required from this role may evolve over time to align with our strategic goals.

• First point of contact for stakeholders nationally to support and coach on day-to-day people management. This includes but is not restricted to; advise on ER cases of varying complexity, contractual obligations, performance management, absence management, and actioning of regional/business unit change programmes.
• Provide guidance and recommendations on complex employee relations queries by presenting commercial risks associated with specific cases.
• Ensure that the performance management process is embedded across the business unit/functions
• Provide insight into local market requirements to ensure informed and effective decision-making.
• Coach and advise line managers to effectively manage people issues in line with our company values, UK employment legislation, people policies, and procedures.
• Facilitate bitesize training with stakeholders on a variety of HR topics to develop the capability of new and existing people managers.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of HR systems, policies and practices, which may involve supporting our transformation team with people-related change projects.
• Ensure that Group HR processes and policies and implemented and embedded successfully.
• Support with sense checking and benchmarking pay and benefits information to support well-informed, fair and consistent decision-making.
• Support with reward, pay review cyclical activity and out-of-cycle queries from stakeholders. This may involve leading cyclical activities in the Scotland and North England region with support from our current HRBPs.
• Support our People Services Team to ensure the ongoing maintenance and accuracy of people data.
• Support line managers with regular workforce planning reviews to ensure business requirements are met and employment types and appropriate legislation is considered with onboarding new colleagues.
• Partner with leaders across Scotland and North England to provide organisational design reviews / planning input and ensure that planned changes/reorganisations are implemented correctly.
• Support and help shape the development and implementation of strategic people plans and projects that support our strategic goals within the Scotland and North England Region.
• Ensure that reward programmes are rolled out across the business unit/function and support managers in making good reward decisions in order to attract, retain and develop the skills we need now and in the future.
• Work with the wider leadership teams to ensure that milestones and plans and delivered for the business unit/function and that those plans align with strategic goals.
• Play a proactive role in ensuring that relevant legislative requirements are met

About You

• Demonstratable understanding of UK employment legislation and best practice people management
• Proven work experience in a generalist HR Advisory role and confident in managing complex employee relations cases
• Experience with Microsoft 365 and HR Systems is essential
• Experience with Sharepoint, One Drive, Power BI is advantageous
  

Personal Attributes

• Strong negotiation and influencing skills
• Driven and resilient individual, passionate about delivering an exceptional HR service
• Personable and adaptable communication style to build relationships and develop trust and transparency with stakeholders of all levels
• Practical and logical approach to decision-making and analysing commercial risk
• High attention to detail with; company policies, people data integrity and contractual agreements