Employee Relations Manager - Birmingham

Location: Birmingham

Hybrid working: Currently a minimum 1 day per week in the office, some travel to London

Role Purpose and Accountabilities

The role-holder will support the Senior ER Manager as required to provide employee relations services in line with the Talent Operating Model. As a trusted advisor, they will navigate a range of complex ER matters and offer tailored support to local leadership and Talent teams as needed. Additionally, this role involves enhancing the capabilities of the dedicated Counsellor Advice Team members through coaching, enabling them to effectively manage cases, as well as being accountable for resolving medium to high-risk and complex ER cases alongside programmes/projects as necessary.

Reporting Line

ER Senior Manager

Key Responsibilities – ER Case Management

• Be the regular contact for queries from the regions’ dedicated Counsellor Advice Team (CAT) members and provide support to ensure a consistently high-quality ER service is provided, identifying and escalating trends.
• Work closely and build strong relationships with these CAT members through regular meetings designed to provide coaching, enhance their skills, and deliver comprehensive and valuable case support and advice.
• Be the central point of contact for queries raised by the local Talent Consultants, assessing and managing such queries, and/or redirecting them to the appropriate stakeholders/teams as necessary.
• Lead the end-to-end management of medium, high-risk and complex ER matters that are not appropriate for management by the Counsellor Advice Team, informing and consulting with Senior ER colleagues, Strategic Talent Consultants, Legal and business stakeholders as appropriate, and in line with the Talent Operating Model.
• Analyse and assess the risks associated with individual cases, including the impact on the individual, team and wider business.
• Proactively identify development needs of key stakeholders/groups to improve understanding of ER management, employment law and EY policies and procedures, work with the Senior ER Manager to develop and deliver solutions as required.
• Maintain accurate MI to monitor compliance against standards, enable regular reporting to key stakeholders and highlight potential root cause of identified trends and recommend actions to develop solutions.
• Support with, and in some cases lead, on managing Employment Tribunal cases.
• Liaise with ACAS and external lawyers to resolve employee legal matters which may arise.

Key Responsibilities – Projects

• Provide expert advice and support, and in some cases lead, on the preparation, delivery and implementation of people change programmes, ER projects and initiatives as required (e.g. TUPE, mergers, acquisitions, reorganisation, redundancy, etc), partnering with Strategic Talent Consultants, Organisation Change and Talent OD programme manager and the business as appropriate.
• Support line managers to develop their people management skills through coaching on issues and more formal training programmes as required.
• Lead on local projects (e.g. Underperformers) as directed by the Senior ER Manager.

Key Responsibilities – Relationship Management

• Work closely and in partnership with the Senior ER Manager.
• Build trust and a safe environment with multiple contacts throughout the business on ER matters.
• Collaborate with Talent Consultants, key business stakeholders and Legal as required.
• Team closely with ER colleagues.
• Be a key contact for the regions’ dedicated Counsellor Advice Team members.

Skills

• Excellent working knowledge of employment law and employee relations.
• Ability to deal with ambiguity and complex situations, advising business assertively with limited support or guidance.
• Ability to quickly build strong and trusting relationships at all business levels and to work effectively as a team.
• Ability to work both independently and closely with the Senior ER Manager to meet strategic objectives.
• Strong written English, well-structured and precise.
• Strong verbal influencing skills.
• Comfortable with Excel (Intermediate level), ServiceNow, SharePoint, Power BI and with manipulating data.
• Ability to maintain confidential information in a professional manner.
• HR qualification, ideally CIPD qualified.

Experiences

• Solid experience of end-to-end management of complex Employee Relations cases up to and including liaison with external third parties.
• Hands-on experience of organisational change programmes and dealing with complex capability management, disciplinaries, grievances, absence/OH cases, redundancies, TUPE, Employment Tribunals, protected conversations, etc.
• Evidence of supporting, coaching and developing junior colleagues as well as peers.
• Evidence of having dealt with busy workload in an organised manner, juggling multiple priorities and with attention to detail where there are competing demands on workload and deliverables.