Head of People in Manchester

About Dunsters Farm

Dunsters Farm is a third generation, family-owned foodservice wholesaler with a 60 million pound turnover, operating from three depots: Bury (head office), Oswestry and Preston. We supply schools, care homes, hospitals, pubs and restaurants across the North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands, delivered via our own temperature-controlled fleet. Our vision is to feed the North, for good. Our mission is to make a difference with every delivery. We are guided by five values: Get Results, One Team, Give Back, Legendary Service, Own It and World Leading Standards. As a growing, purpose-driven business, we are investing in our people function to match our ambition.

The Role

The Head of People is a hands-on senior HR role for someone equally comfortable setting people strategy and rolling their sleeves up to deliver it. Sitting on our Senior Leadership Team, you will lead a team of two, ensure the HR fundamentals - recruitment, employee relations, compliance and process - are covered to a consistently high standard, and build a strong local employer brand across all three depots so we can attract and retain the best people in every community we operate in. You will be a confident communicator at every level of the business, from drivers and warehouse teams to the senior leadership team, and a visible ambassador for Dunsters Farm at industry and community events. This is a role for someone ambitious, professionally credible, and genuinely motivated by helping people succeed, not just administering policy.

Key Responsibilities

• HR strategy and leadership
• Lead and develop a team of two, setting clear priorities and standards across all three sites.
• Own the people strategy and translate it into practical plans for Bury, Preston and Oswestry.
• Act as a trusted advisor to the Managing Director and the wider senior leadership team on all people matters.
• Lead workforce strategy and design across Bury, Preston and Oswestry, ensuring team structures and capability keep pace with the business's growth ambitions.
• Report on people strategy, priorities and progress to the Board on a monthly basis.
• Employer brand, attraction and retention
• Own Dunsters Farm's positioning as an employer of choice within the foodservice and logistics sectors.
• Build and promote our employer brand locally around each depot, reflecting the different labour markets in Bury, Preston and Oswestry.
• Own the end-to-end approach to attracting, recruiting and retaining the highest calibre of people at every level.
• Represent Dunsters Farm at recruitment, community and industry events, speaking confidently about our HR activity to external stakeholders.
• Learning, Development and employee experience
• Champion learning and development so our people have clear paths to grow and succeed.
• Balance process discipline with a genuinely human approach to our people.
• Provide training to line managers and supervisors on employment law updates and key people management skills.
• Employee wellbeing
• Own and curate our employee wellbeing strategy, ensuring it is genuinely lived across all three depots rather than a policy on paper.
• Design practical wellbeing initiatives that reflect the different needs of warehouse, driver and office-based teams.
• Track the impact of wellbeing activity and report progress to the Managing Director and senior leadership team.
• HR Fundamentals, compliance and employee relations
• Ensure robust, compliant HR processes and records across recruitment, onboarding, performance and employee relations, using BreatheHR as the system of record.
• Design and embed a practical performance management framework that drives accountability and development simply and effectively.
• Handle and oversee employee relations, escalating contentious matters appropriately.
• Keep people policies and practice aligned with UK employment law, right-to-work checks and Traffic Commissioner expectations relevant to our transport operation.
• Support a culture that holds up to audit against ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 requirements for people-related processes.
• Payroll
• Own the accurate, complete and timely preparation and submission of payroll input data - new starters, leavers, contractual changes, hours, overtime, absence and statutory payments to our outsourced payroll bureau, for all three depots, every pay cycle.
• Act as the main point of contact with the payroll bureau, resolving queries promptly and working with Finance to reconcile bureau outputs before pay is run.
• Oversee pension auto-enrolment administration and communications in conjunction with the payroll bureau, ensuring statutory deadlines are met.
• Maintain secure, accurate records of payroll-related personal data in line with UK GDPR, given the sensitivity of pay and financial information, and escalate any data incidents without delay.

What we’re looking for

• Qualifications
• Chartered CIPD status is preferred; candidates working towards Level 7 / Chartered status with a clear plan to complete it will also be considered.
• A clear, demonstrable commitment to ongoing professional development.
• Experience and capability
• Substantial senior HR generalist experience, ideally gained across multiple sites or a distributed workforce.
• A track record of building employer brand and attraction strategies that work for different local labour markets.
• Confident, credible communicator able to flex from shop floor and depot conversations to board-level input.
• Process-driven approach to HR fundamentals, combined with a genuine, human commitment to employee wellbeing and experience.
• Comfortable representing the organisation externally at events, with partners, and with wider stakeholders.
• Full UK driving licence and willingness to travel regularly between Bury, Preston and Oswestry.
• Experience in food, logistics, wholesale, retail or another operationally intensive, multi-site sector is an advantage.
• Experience designing or leading an employee wellbeing strategy, ideally across a multi-site workforce spanning warehouse, driver and office-based teams.
• Experience overseeing payroll data preparation with an outsourced payroll bureau, with a good working knowledge of statutory payments and pension auto-enrolment.
• Personal qualities
• Ambitious and energised by working in a progressive, growing, family-owned business.
• Willing to get involved at all levels.
• Aligned with Dunsters Farm's values: Get Results, One Team, Give Back, Legendary Service, Own It.

Why join Dunsters Farm

You will join a family-owned business with real ambition, where people are at the heart of our operation. You will have the scope to shape how we attract, develop and look after our people across three very different communities, and to build a People function that lets the rest of the business focus on the work that matters most: our customers, our reputation and delivering great food!

Location: Based at Bury Head Office with regular travel to Preston and Oswestry

Salary: Competitive

Contract: Full-Time, permanent, Monday to Friday, 40 hours per week

Benefits:

• 32 days holiday
• Life insurance
• Health cash plan
• Company pension
• Employee discount
• Free parking
• Cycle to work scheme
• Health & wellbeing programme
• Referral programme
• Sick pay