Human Resources Business Partner in London

At BCLP, we’ve built our firm on the foundations of thinking differently. Curious, inquisitive and unbound by tradition, we’re building change within our sector and beyond.

It starts with our people, which is why we need a Human Resources Business Partner to join our team and work closely with leaders to align people strategies with firm goals.

Key Responsibilities Strategic Partnering & Firm Alignment

• Act as a strategic HR partner to leaders, aligning people strategy with business priorities and long-term firm goals.
• Consult and provide coaching and guidance to leaders on workforce planning, team design and role clarity.
• Work on, support, or lead global HR projects and initiatives, ensuring alignment with firm-wide strategy across regions.

Talent, Workforce Planning & Capability Development

• Lead workforce planning activities across assigned business areas, anticipating future capability needs, skills gaps, and critical talent risks.
• Drive talent management initiatives including succession planning, internal mobility, and career pathways to support a sustainable talent pipeline.
• Partner with L&D to support leadership development, management capability and firm wide skills programmes.
• Strengthen performance management practices through effective goal setting, feedback processes, calibration, and ongoing performance conversations.
• Support leaders in developing high potential employees and shaping development strategies for critical roles and future leaders.
• Take a proactive and rigorous approach to under performance, ensuring managers identify issues early, set clear expectations, and implement structured support plans.
• Partner with leaders to ensure concerns are documented, addressed consistently, and escalated when required, maintaining strong governance aligned with firm policy while minimising business risk.

Employee Relations & Risk Management

• Oversee complex ER matters, ensuring outcomes are consistent, fair, and compliant with policy and employment legislation.
• Provide expert judgment on risk mitigation, escalating appropriately and partnering with Legal and specialist HR teams where required.

Organization Effectiveness & Change

• Lead or support organisational change initiatives including restructures, team redesigns, integrations, and operating model changes.
• Apply structured change management methods to ensure positive adoption and minimal business disruption.

Culture, Inclusion & Collaboration with HR Centers of Expertise

• Champion an inclusive, high-performance culture, integrating I&D principles into hiring, development, and progression.
• Partner with Recruiting, L&D, Compensation, I&D, and People Services to deliver integrated solutions and a seamless employee experience.

People Analytics & Insights

• Use people analytics (turnover, I&D data, performance distribution, engagement feedback) to influence decision making and shape action plans.
• Partner with leaders to improve engagement, wellbeing, and employee experience using survey insights and feedback loops.

Communication & Stakeholder Management

• Build trusted relationships with leaders and stakeholders, ensuring clear, timely communication and high levels of transparency.
• Facilitate effective two-way communication between leadership teams and employees to support culture, clarity, and trust.
• Exceptional ability to build trust with senior leaders and stakeholders across matrixed teams.
• Strong influencing and coaching skills, with the ability to challenge constructively and drive decision making without formal authority.
• Skilled at identifying capability gaps and shaping development strategies for critical roles and future leaders.
• Demonstrated comfort working with people analytics and translating insights into meaningful actions.
• Clear, concise, and influential written and verbal communication style, with the ability to facilitate difficult conversations and deliver presentations.
• Ability to operate effectively in a global, complex, and evolving HR environment.
• Strong commitment to fostering an inclusive, high-performance culture.

Experience & Knowledge

• Previous experience as an HR Business Partner or HR Manager, ideally within legal or professional services.
• Strong understanding of employment legislation and the ability to apply policy and legal principles consistently and practically.
• Demonstrated experience handling complex ER matters, managing change, and supporting organisational design.

At Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner we understand the value of a diverse workforce, and we believe people perform at their best when they can truly be themselves at work. We aim to create an inclusive environment where all our employees are valued, motivated and able to be themselves. In order to provide the best possible service to our diverse client base, we are committed to recruiting, retaining, rewarding and developing our people with regard to their abilities and contributions and without reference to their background, gender, gender identity or expression, ethnic origin, age, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, political belief, disability or any other protected characteristic.

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