Director, HR People Partner and ER COE Lead in London

The Role

This is a Director-level role with dual accountability: a commercial strategic partner to the London Markets leadership team, and the UK & Ireland Employee Relations (ER) Centre of Excellence (COE) Lead. Both mandates report to the Senior Director, People.

The person in this role is first and foremost a business leader who brings deep people expertise. In the London Markets pillar, that means sitting alongside the Managing Director and senior leadership team as a genuine peer, challenging commercial decisions, shaping growth strategy, and holding the business accountable for the people agenda that drives performance. In the ER COE pillar, it means owning the legal and risk framework that protects the business across UK & Ireland, and building a People team capable of operating to the same standard.

This is not a role for someone who waits to be asked. It requires a confident, commercially literate leader who understands the business model, reads the commercial environment, anticipates where people risk and opportunity intersect, and acts accordingly.

Pillar 1: Commercial Strategic Partner, London Markets

London Markets is one of the most commercially significant parts of the UK & Ireland business, with core transactional teams in Investment and Leasing operating at the heart of the Central London market. This is a high-performance, high-expectation environment where the people agenda is a direct lever for revenue growth, talent retention and competitive advantage.

This role operates as a true leadership team member, not as a People function representative embedded in the business. The expectation is that this person understands the P&L, knows the market, challenges strategy, and brings a commercial perspective to every people decision. People expertise is the tool; business performance is the objective.

Commercial Leadership and Strategic Partnership

• Sit as an active member of the London Markets leadership team, contributing to commercial strategy, growth planning and business performance discussions with a people lens that sharpens, not softens, the conversation.
• Develop a deep understanding of the London Markets P&L, revenue drivers, client relationships and competitive dynamics, using that knowledge to make the people agenda commercially relevant and directly tied to business outcomes.
• Challenge the leadership team on people decisions that carry commercial risk or limit growth potential, acting as a constructive but direct voice at the table.
• Anticipate the people implications of commercial decisions, including new mandates, client wins, market shifts and structural changes, and get ahead of them before they become problems.
• Partner the Managing Director and Operations Director to set the people priorities that will drive performance, not just support it, including talent strategy, organisational design and leadership effectiveness.
• Hold the business accountable for the people commitments it makes, including on performance, development and culture, and track progress with the same rigour as any other commercial KPI.
• Use people data and commercial insight to build a compelling, evidence-based view of where the business needs to invest in its people to grow, and make the case for it directly to senior leaders.

Talent, Growth and Organisational Performance

• Lead the talent strategy for London Markets, identifying the capability the business needs to win in the market and building a plan to acquire, develop and retain it.
• Drive workforce planning in direct alignment with the commercial pipeline, ensuring the business has the right people in the right roles ahead of demand, not in response to it.
• Partner with senior leaders on organisational design, ensuring the structure of the business supports its growth ambitions and does not create friction or inefficiency that costs revenue.
• Personally lead executive hiring for senior roles within London Markets, acting as a commercial partner to the hiring leader rather than a recruitment coordinator.
• Own the performance and reward agenda for London Markets, ensuring the framework incentivises the right commercial behaviours, retains top performers and differentiates meaningfully.
• Lead people change and transformation programmes within London Markets, including restructuring, new operating models and system or process changes, with a clear line of sight to the commercial outcome each change is designed to deliver.
• Identify leadership and capability gaps that are limiting commercial performance and put plans in place to close them, whether through development, structural change or strategic hiring.

Operational People Partnership

• Provide expert HR advice and guidance to senior managers and the broader leadership population on all people matters, including employee relations, policy application and risk.
• Manage the employee relations caseload for London Markets, applying commercial judgement alongside legal knowledge to reach outcomes that protect the business and its people.
• Deliver core annual people lifecycle programmes, including talent reviews, pay and reward cycles and employee engagement, ensuring these are executed with commercial intent rather than as compliance exercises.
• Line manage the People Advisor supporting the London business, providing clear direction, meaningful development and effective delegation.
• Partner with People Centres of Excellence to bring specialist capability into the business where needed, acting as the integrating force that ensures COE solutions land commercially.
• Work with other People Partners across Markets to lead on broader UK projects and share commercial and people insight across the function.

Pillar 2: ER COE Lead, UK & Ireland

CBRE UK & Ireland operates across multiple service lines, client accounts and legal entities. The people risk and compliance landscape is significant. As ER COE Lead, this person owns the employee relations framework, people risk, health and safety people agenda, PAGE (policies, procedures and governance), ER data and reporting, and the approach to M&A and TUPE across UK & Ireland. Critically, this person also leads the upskilling and capability development of the wider People team in all ER-related matters.

Employee Relations Leadership

• Own the ER framework for UK & Ireland, ensuring policies, practices and guidance are legally compliant, commercially appropriate and consistently applied.
• Personally manage complex, high-risk and sensitive ER cases including senior-level disciplinaries, grievances, protected disclosures and matters with potential legal or reputational exposure.
• Provide first-line escalation for the broader People team on ER matters, offering expert guidance and clear direction on how to proceed.
• Maintain a current and thorough working knowledge of UK employment law, ensuring the business is protected and proactively briefed on legislative changes.
• Work closely with the in-house employment legal team, providing clear and timely instruction on matters requiring legal input and acting as the primary HR interface for cases escalated to internal legal counsel.

ER Capability Building and Team Development

• A core accountability of the ER COE Lead is to raise the ER capability of the entire UK & Ireland People team, moving the function from a place where ER expertise sits with one person to a community of confident, consistent and commercially grounded practitioners.
• Design and deliver a structured ER capability programme for the People Business Partner community, covering case management, employment law application, risk assessment and decision-making.
• Provide regular coaching and guided case review to People Business Partners, building confidence and consistency in how ER matters are handled across the business.
• Develop practical ER guidance, toolkits and case frameworks that equip the team to manage a wider range of cases independently and to a consistent standard.
• Set and maintain quality standards for ER case handling across the People team, including how cases are assessed, documented, escalated and resolved.
• Identify skills gaps and development needs across the People team in relation to ER and employment law, and put structured plans in place to address them.
• Brief and update the People team on legislative changes and case law developments, translating legal updates into practical guidance the team can apply immediately.
• Act as a visible ER subject matter expert and thought leader within the People function, fostering a culture where ER knowledge is shared, developed and applied proactively.
• Monitor the quality and consistency of ER case handling across the team, using case reviews and data analysis to identify where further coaching or guidance is needed.

ER Data and Management Information

• Own the ER data framework for UK & Ireland, ensuring case data is captured accurately, consistently and in a format that enables meaningful analysis.
• Produce and maintain ER management information and reporting, including case volumes, case types, time to resolution and trends by business area, level and demographic.
• Use ER data to identify systemic issues and surface insights to People leadership and the business, moving the function from reactive case management to proactive risk reduction.
• Ensure ER data governance is aligned with GDPR and data protection requirements, working with legal and compliance as needed.
• Set the standard for how ER cases are recorded and tracked across the People team, driving consistency in how data is captured and reported.

People Risk and PAGE (Policies, Procedures and Governance)

• Own the people risk register for UK & Ireland, identifying, assessing and tracking people-related risks across the business and ensuring appropriate mitigations are in place.
• Lead the PAGE agenda for the People function, ensuring all People policies and procedures are current, legally compliant, accessible and fit for the CBRE UK & Ireland context.
• Manage the policy review cycle, coordinating input from legal, compliance and the business to ensure policies are updated in line with legislative change and business need.
• Work with the People Director to ensure people risk is appropriately represented in the business's broader risk framework and governance processes.
• Identify regulatory or legal developments that carry people risk implications and brief People leadership and the business accordingly.
• Partner with the Compliance and Risk team on core people risk areas, ensuring people risk is identified, assessed and mitigated in alignment with the firm’s broader risk management framework and that the People function is a proactive contributor to the business’s risk agenda, not a passive recipient of it.
• Represent the People function at the Risk Committee, providing clear and authoritative reporting on people risk exposure, mitigation activity and emerging risk areas, and ensuring the committee has the insight it needs to make informed decisions on people-related risk.

Health and Safety (People)

• Act as the People function's lead on health and safety matters affecting employees, working in close partnership with the Health and Safety team.
• Provide HR guidance on cases involving workplace injury, occupational health, reasonable adjustments and fitness for work, ensuring decisions are legally sound and people-centred.
• Support the business in meeting its duty of care obligations, including oversight of occupational health referrals and long-term absence cases from an ER and H&S perspective.
• Ensure People policies and practices relating to wellbeing, mental health and absence are consistent with H&S obligations and current best practice.
• Contribute to the development and communication of H&S-related people policies, including stress at work, lone working and workplace adjustments.

M&A, TUPE and Collective Programmes

• Act as the lead HR contact for all M&A activity in UK & Ireland, working with Corporate Development, legal and finance from the earliest stage to assess people risk and plan for integration or separation.
• Own the People workstream on all TUPE transfers affecting UK & Ireland, both incoming and outgoing, ensuring legal compliance, a consistent employee experience and clear communication throughout.
• Lead collective consultation processes, including redundancy programmes, restructures and any other change requiring statutory or voluntary consultation.
• Develop and maintain CBRE's approach to collective ER, including engagement with trade unions or employee representative bodies, ensuring the business’s position is legally robust and commercially considered.
• Build and maintain the playbooks, templates and toolkits the People team needs to execute TUPE and collective programmes consistently and compliantly.
• Brief and support the wider People team through M&A and collective processes, acting as the subject matter expert and primary point of accountability for delivery.

Person Specification

Experience

• Proven track record as a senior HR Business Partner who operates as a genuine commercial partner to the business, influencing strategy and driving performance rather than delivering HR process.
• Experience working directly with senior leadership teams, including MDs and C-suite leaders, in a commercially driven, revenue-generating environment.
• Demonstrable ability to connect people strategy to commercial outcomes, including revenue growth, organisational performance and competitive positioning.
• Deep employee relations expertise, including personal experience managing complex disciplinary, grievance and investigation processes to conclusion.
• Demonstrable knowledge of UK employment law, with the confidence to apply it practically and advise with authority.
• Experience owning or leading a policy and governance (PAGE) agenda, including managing a policy review cycle and advising on regulatory change.
• Experience managing people risk, including contributing to a risk register and escalating appropriately within a governance framework.
• Practical experience of TUPE transfers and collective consultation processes, managed to a high legal and commercial standard.
• Exposure to M&A activity from an HR perspective, including due diligence, people risk assessment and integration or separation planning.
• A track record of building ER capability in others through coaching, structured programmes and toolkit development.
• Line management experience, with the ability to develop and delegate effectively.
• Background in a large, matrixed, commercially driven organisation. Real estate, professional services or financial services is an advantage.
• Human resources degree or equivalent. Chartered Member of the CIPD (MCIPD or FCIPD) preferred.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office, specifically Excel, and experienced with HR systems (Peoplesoft preferred).

Skills and Capabilities

• Commercially literate: you understand P&Ls, revenue drivers and business models, and you use that understanding to make the people agenda relevant to what the business is trying to achieve.
• A genuine challenger: you push back on the business when it matters, ask the uncomfortable question and hold leaders accountable, without losing the relationship.
• Credible with senior leaders: you hold your own at the leadership table, land difficult messages clearly and are trusted by the people you partner.
• Strategically minded: you see around corners, anticipate where people and commercial risk intersect and act before problems escalates.
• Strong judgement on risk: you know when to escalation, when to act and when to slow down, and you stay consistency under pressure.
• A confident developer of others, with the ability to build ER expertise across a team through coaching, structured learning and clear standards.
• Clear, confident communicator in all settings, from senior leadership briefings to formal ER processes and collective consultation.
• Analytically capable: you use people data and commercial intelligence to build a case, identify a trend and challenge an assumption.
• Highly organised with the ability to manage a complex, multi-strand workload without dropping standards.
• Collaborative and generous with knowledge, contributing to the strength of the whole People function, not just your own remit.

Why CBRE

When you join CBRE, you become part of the global leader in commercial real estate services and investment that helps businesses and people thrive. We are dynamic problem solvers and forward-thinking professionals who create significant impact. Our collaborative culture is built on our shared values — respect, integrity, service and excellence — and we value the diverse perspectives, backgrounds and skillsets of our people. At CBRE, you have the opportunity to realize your full potential.

Our Values in Hiring

At CBRE, we are committed to fostering a culture where everyone feels they belong. We value diverse perspectives and experiences, and we welcome all applications.

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