Employee Relations Manager- 12 Month FTC in London

We are BDO, an accountancy and business advisory firm, providing the advice and solutions entrepreneurial organisations need to navigate today’s changing world. We work with the companies that are Britain’s economic engine – ambitious, entrepreneurially-spirited and high growth businesses that fuel the economy - and directly advise the owners and management teams that lead them.

Our greatest asset is our people, so our HR team focus on ensuring we are all reaching our potential. They use their specialist expertise to help us attract great talent, enable our employees to succeed and inspire a unified culture of development across our firm. By playing a role in the recruitment and management of our people, they help change lives and influence the future of BDO. Join a driven and passionate team where you can be yourself, while also helping your colleagues to achieve their ambitions.

Leading organisations trust us because of the quality of our advice. That quality grows from a thorough understanding of their business, and that understanding comes from working closely with them and building long-lasting relationships. You’ll be someone who is both comfortable working proactively and managing your own tasks, as well as confident collaborating with others and communicating regularly with senior managers, directors, and BDO’s partners to help businesses effectively. You’ll be encouraged to identify and draw attention to opportunities for enhancing our delivery and providing additional services to organisations we work with.

Reporting to the Senior Employee Relations Manager, managing the ER team and working with the HR and other business areas to provide expert employee relations guidance. Develop and maintain effective employee relations across the Firm to minimise ER and commercial exposure, initiate and deliver legally compliant and best practice employment practices. The HR team are responsible for around 8,000+ people and therefore the ER team are instrumental in the support and delivery of expert ER/HR advice across the business.

In this role you’ll also:

• Provide commercial advice and guidance to HR, People Managers and business stakeholders, including Partners, on sensitive matters related to employee relations such as: disciplinary, grievance, discrimination, contractual matters, restructure, conflict resolution, capability, settlement agreements, policy interpretation and other ER matters presenting risk to the Firm.
• Responsibility for the day-to-day team management, development and coaching of an ER Advisor and Assistant ER Manager.
• Act as first point of escalation for ER team on advice, appeals and more complex ER matters, with support of Senior ER Manager where required.
• Proactively maintain and apply current knowledge of employment law, firm policies and practices to manage ER cases from advice, investigation, support at meetings, documentation through to providing commercial recommendations and solutions, whilst balancing risk to the business.
• Have responsibility for the ongoing development and refinement of the HR policies, working to ensure consistency of approach and compliance with current employment legislation.
• Ensure effective communication with relevant stakeholders to update on forthcoming legislation and new policy including the production and delivery of training and upskilling of HR team where necessary.
• Support the Senior ER Manager by pro-actively contributing to projects, which may include the development, communication of new programs or initiatives that impact employee relations matters.
• Responsibility for managing response to Data Subject Access Requests, coordinating and collating materials and liaising with Risk and other business areas as necessary.
• Support in the production of data and analytics available to the ER team, to identify strategic and commercial trends which influence future activity and make recommendations to the Senior ER Manager.

You’ll be someone with:

• Experience of working in an employee relations, case management and policy focused role, including strong knowledge of employment law and practical interpretation and application of providing commercial solutions.
• Experience of working at management level and effectively managing a small team or line management responsibility.
• Proven stakeholder management experience as a commercial, credible and assertive subject matter expert influencing up to Partner level.
• Experience of portraying complex issues and problem-solving initiatives in a ‘user friendly’ format, together with supporting processes and procedures.
• Experience of training, coaching and developing HR and business stakeholders on ER matters, to share your knowledge and increase their capability.
• Experience of conducting complete reviews of policies, practices, and terms and conditions, effective problem solving and successful implementation and smooth running of solutions.
• Experience of writing succinct documentation and recommendations to senior stakeholders.
• Experience using a case management systems and working in a fast paced and sometimes challenging environment.

You’ll be able to be yourself; we’ll recognise and value you for who you are and celebrate and reward your contributions to the business. We’re committed to agile working, and we offer every colleague the opportunity to work in ways that suit you, your teams, and the task at hand.

At BDO, we’ll help you achieve your personal goals and career ambitions, and we have programmes, resources, and frameworks that provide clarity and structure around career development.

Mutual support and respect is one of BDO’s core values and we’re proud of our distinctive, people-centred culture. From informal success conversations to formal mentoring and coaching, we’ll support you at every stage in your career, whatever your personal and professional needs.

Our agile working framework helps us stay connected, bringing teams together where and when it counts so they can share ideas and help one another. At BDO, you’ll always have access to the people and resources you need to do your best work.

We know that collaboration is the key to creating value for the companies we work with and satisfying experiences for our colleagues, so we’ve invested in state-of-the-art collaboration spaces in our offices. BDO’s people represent a wealth of knowledge and expertise, and we’ll encourage you to build your network, work alongside others, and share your skills and experiences. With a range of multidisciplinary events and dedicated resources, you’ll never stop learning at BDO.

At BDO, we help entrepreneurial businesses to succeed, fuelling the UK economy. Our success is powered by our people, which is why we’re always finding new ways to invest in you. Across the UK thousands of unique minds continue to come together to help companies we work with to achieve their ambitions. We’ve got a clear purpose, and we’re confident in our future, because we’re adapting and evolving to build on our strengths, ensuring we continue to find the right combination of global reach, integrity and expertise. We shape the future together with openness and clarity, because we believe in empowering people to think creatively about how we can do things better.