People Relationship Advisor in London

Role Purpose: The role will support the people relationship issues of a portfolio or group of services providing expert HR advice and support. It will work in partnership with their service areas to develop and maintain positive employee relationships, increasing engagement and creating a positive organisational culture. The role will support services to develop and maintain impactful service delivery focused on positive outcomes for our residents.

Example outcomes or objectives that this role will deliver:

• Ensure expert consistent advice and decision making in employment practice including employment legislation. This will include the management and support of complex cases, large scale organisational change, organisational development, workforce planning and resourcing, pay and reward, job evaluations, learning and development.
• Ensure employment practices adopt inclusive, relational and restorative approaches.
• Provide expert advice and guidance, as well as hands-on involvement when required on individual cases, settling disputes and generally de-risking issues associated with people management.
• Ensure service areas have people data and insight, research and best practice information to support evidence-based decision making.
• Support the management and strengthening of the council's relationship with its recognised Trade Unions, staff networks and other partners and stakeholders.
• Support the design and delivery of service-based people projects and People and Inclusion projects depending upon the scope of the work; this may include working in multi-disciplinary teams across People and Inclusion and/or the wider organisation.
• Support on designing, developing and implementing our people management policies and procedures and good practice guidelines ensuring they are robust, relevant and reflect a relational and restorative approach.

People Management Responsibilities: From time to time, the role may be required to supervise temporary agency staff, those on work experience or apprentices, including allocating tasks, overseeing delivery and giving feedback.

Relationships: Relationships will need to be built with key clients, e.g. Directors, Heads of Service, Managers/Supervisors, Members and staff. Also Partners, Head teachers, Bursars and Governors. Relationships are also key within the People and Inclusion service and with other support services, e.g. Legal, Finance, ICT, Procurement, Strategy, Trade Unions and representatives from our self-organised staff network groups.

The role can be done on a hybrid basis working from either an administrative base or home, though the expectation is that staff spend on average two days a week.

Technical Knowledge and Experience:

• Detailed knowledge of employment legislation and trends.
• Understanding and commitment to inclusive relational and restorative practices.
• Detailed knowledge (typically gained through a recognised professional qualification e.g. CIPD) of professional HR practice and procedure.
• Collaborative approach demonstrating mutual trust and support, within the council and with partners.
• Strong communication and influencing skills.
• Ability to analyse problems, identify root cause and develop a range of solutions, which will add value.
• Able to focus on internal and external customers, being innovative and creative, open to ideas and challenge and committed to individual learning and development.
• Evidence of having planned work over short to medium term to include contributing to project deliverables.
• Ability to build and maintain effective working relationships at all levels across the organisation in order to influence and get things done.