HR Business Partner

Overview

We are looking for hands-on HR Business Partner professionals with a strong background in Employee Relations (ER), supporting UK & Ireland, Europe and APAC regions with a focus on the UK. The role sits between first-line HR service delivery and HR Director level support, owning regional ER activity, policy review and development, manager guidance, and operational HR processes, while escalating senior or high-risk cases to the relevant HR Directors as appropriate. The HR Business Partner will support Global and Regional HR Directors, providing a comprehensive HR service to their designated regions, guiding our people in day-to-day people matters and ensuring practices and policies align with business strategy and best-in-class HR standards. This is a varied role balancing operational needs with identifying trends and opportunities for change. Regions may be subject to change.

Key Responsibilities

• Employee Relations & Case Management: Manage and advise on grievances, disciplinaries, disputes between employees and managers, and right to speak cases, particularly during peak periods, applying sound judgment, knowledge of market legislation and commercial awareness.
• Support short-term and long-term sickness absence cases, including OH referrals and process management.
• Collaborate with key stakeholders to develop performance, succession and career management plans by assessing the effectiveness of career paths and aligning employee capabilities to the division/function\'s strategic direction.
• Handle performance management cases, including PIPs and probation management, with objective setting, check-ins, and risk mitigation under UK Employment Rights changes.
• Manage flexible working requests, including advising managers and supporting conversations.
• Maintain and improve the ER tracker and case governance processes.
• Policy, Guidelines & Training: Review, update and maintain UK HR and ER policies reflecting changes in legislation across the region; create and refresh manager guidelines under policies; support development of manager training on ER capability and confidence.
• Contribute to the global employee handbook, working with HR leadership on regional vs global alignment.
• Organisational Change & Risk: Provide operational ER support for restructures and redundancies, particularly volume activity, with HRDs leading strategy and senior cases.
• Support settlement agreements and exits at an operational level, escalating senior or complex exits to HRDs.
• Support Data Subject Access Requests (D(SARs)) post-search review in partnership with relevant legal/data teams and HR Director.
• HR Operations & Cross Border Support: Support ER matters in countries without local HR coverage (e.g., Netherlands, Singapore).
• Coordinate leaver activity including visa termination support, working with HR Ops and external partners.
• Act as a key operational partner to HR Ops where ER, policy, and employee lifecycle issues overlap.
• Supporting rollout and completion of cyclical activities (PMR, Salary increases, etc.).
• Engagement & Diversity: Drive and support leaders to improve the employee experience and increase engagement; champion diversity and lead portfolios supporting the business to build an inclusive culture across the employee journey and support the I&D strategy.
• Collaboration & Stakeholder Management: Work with HR Directors as level-2/3 ER owner, manage and coach team members, partner with Talent Acquisition and HR leadership on workforce and people risk topics, engage with leaders to translate challenges into people initiatives, attend local and regional work councils as required, escalating to the HR Director when needed.

Capabilities & Experience

• Essential: Strong UK Employee Relations background with global exposure to Europe and APAC; proven experience managing grievances, disciplinaries, absence, capability and performance including probation, and flexible working; experience reviewing and updating HR policies and manager guidance; confidence advising managers on a range of people matters; comfortable operating in high-volume, fast-paced, and ambiguous environments; solid in-country HR experience supporting a region and willingness to learn new countries/regions; experience working with Work Councils; proficiency in English; excellent listening, verbal and written communication; strong stakeholder engagement and expectation management.
• Desirable: Exposure to global or multi-country ER environments (EMEA and APAC); experience supporting restructures or redundancy programmes; background in HR Operations, Senior Advisor, or HR Manager roles.

Location & Country

Country: United Kingdom