HR Operations Manager, Labor & Employee Relations

We are hiring a Labour & Employee Relations Leader for the UK & Ireland to lead and execute labour and employee relations strategy across our British and Irish entities. You will partner closely with senior business leaders, HR teams, and recognised trade unions or employee representative bodies to foster a constructive, high-performing working environment amidst complex industrial landscapes.

GE Vernova’s footprint in the UK & Ireland comprises critical engineering, manufacturing, and service operations. The Labour & Employee Relations (L&ER) COE team is responsible for managing collective bargaining, trade union recognition, industrial action disputes, statutory bodies such as the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), workforce change management, and significant business transformation projects. As our primary ER/LR expert on the ground in the UK & Ireland, you will be the trusted advisor to local leadership, navigating complex UK and Irish employment law and industrial relations frameworks, leading collective consultations, and ensuring that all organisational changes are executed smoothly, legally, and in alignment with both local legislation and company strategy. This is a newly created role: there is currently no dedicated labour relations resource in the UK & Ireland, so you will build the function and its relationships from the ground up.

As our subject matter expert in UK and Irish labour law and industrial relations, you will design and implement proactive ER frameworks, manage delicate relationships with trade unions, and shape how employee relations risks, industrial disputes, and change projects are managed locally. You will own the ongoing health of our local labour practices—ensuring statutory compliance, maintaining effective collective governance, and driving continuous improvement—treating employee relations as an enabler of cultural transformation and organisational resilience. In addition, you will be responsible for coordinating local information and consultation processes, facilitating formal dispute resolution, managing external legal counsel and industrial relations consultants, and tracking all activities in auditable systems.

Candidate Profile

We are looking for a seasoned, commercially astute labour relations professional with a proven, hands-on ability to navigate complex industrial action disputes, trade union negotiations, CAC proceedings, and large-scale workforce transformations within unionised UK and Irish environments. This is an advanced role where deep expertise in UK employment law, collective bargaining, stakeholder management, and change management is essential. We are seeking someone who has held a dedicated labour or industrial relations role, who brings pragmatism and pace. If you enjoy solving complex industrial relations challenges and building collaborative relationships that provide clear answers to critical business questions, this is an excellent opportunity to make a tangible, lasting impact on our UK, Ireland, and broader European operations.

Job Description

• Industrial Relations (~65%)
• Serve as the primary L&ER subject matter expert for the UK & Ireland, engaging constructively with trade unions, employee representatives, and statutory bodies to build trust and resolve disputes.
• Lead negotiations on collective agreements, annual pay reviews, trade union recognition/derecognition claims, and proceedings involving the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC).
• Directly manage industrial action disputes and balloting processes, applying robust risk-mitigation strategies, contingency planning, and effective conflict resolution frameworks.
• Partner with senior HR and business leaders to design intake, approval, and consultation strategies for complex restructuring, workforce change, and business transformation programmes.
• Lead collective redundancy consultations and major organisational redesign projects across UK and Irish entities.
• Use the COE’s centralised tracking tools to record local labour meetings, collective engagement activity, dispute logs, and project milestones in alignment with European L&ER standards.
• Lead data governance and record-keeping for the UK & Ireland L&ER function, ensuring all statutory consultations, agreements, and information obligations are documented accurately and on time.
• Use COE dashboards and early-warning analytics to flag local project and industrial relations risks ahead of statutory deadlines, enabling proactive decision-making.
• Drive standard work and simplification across local ER processes, establishing repeatable templates and playbooks for grievance handling, disciplinary procedures, and collective bargaining.
• Develop a strong external labour relations network to understand business trends and strategies that can further enhance our working relationships.
• Deliver training on negotiation skills, employee engagement and communications strategies to support front line leadership culture and strategy.
• Manage and co-ordinate Access requests consistently and compliantly for UK business to align business interests with legal requirements.
• Lead site-level labour relations assessments (leadership capability, engagement and communication) and act on the findings.
• Build the capability of UK & Ireland HR teams in wage negotiation and collective bargaining, including deployment of the L&ER wage negotiation playbook, convening them in person regularly.
• Respond to and manage trade union recognition campaigns and access arrangements under the new workplace-access legislation.
• Ensure strict confidentiality and appropriate handling of highly sensitive employee, union, and industrial relations data at all times.
• Project, Vendor & Stakeholder Coordination (~20%)
• Support HR leaders with workforce planning, restructuring volume analysis, and redundancy costing, engaging with country HR and business leaders to ensure smooth execution of people projects.
• Liaise with HR and Labour Relations contacts across Europe, the UK, and Ireland to share updates on current and pending projects, identify local legal or operational roadblocks, and track progress.
• Own distribution and completion tracking of standard work materials, change documentation, and collective consultation notices (including statutory redundancy notices).
• Profile project volume and capacity constraints across the UK & Ireland HR team, sharing findings with COE L&ER leadership to resolve potential industrial or operational risks.
• Establish and continuously improve local project and change management standards, ensuring HR managers have consistent access to guidance, templates, and reporting tools.
• Coordinate local ER meeting logistics, manage relationships with external employment counsel, industrial relations consultants, and translation/outplacement vendors, and oversee associated invoicing.
• Maintain local L&ER documentation, keeping standard work, training materials, and collective agreements current and accessible.
• Build strong working relationships with HR, Legal, Compliance, Communications, and business leaders, influencing outcomes across a matrixed organization without direct authority.
• UK/Ireland Regulatory & EU Change Management Context (~15%)
• Apply expert knowledge of UK employment law (Employment Rights Act, TULRCA, Equality Act) and Irish employment legislation, collective consultation obligations, and change management processes.
• Act as a confident, credible communicator who can engage and influence internal and external stakeholders directly, ensuring accurate information is provided on time to meet strict statutory deadlines.
• Partner with senior Labour & Employee Relations leaders to prioritize and support strategic initiatives tied to local industrial relations and broader European change activity.
• Keep a diligent record of all aspects of collective consultations and ER cases across the UK & Ireland, building a library of past projects and precedents to continuously evolve our approach.
• Monitor upcoming changes to UK and Irish employment legislation (such as proposed employment rights reforms), advising leadership on potential impacts and preparing proactive mitigation strategies.

Essential Requirements

• Significant professional experience in Labour Relations or Employee Relations, in a dedicated labour or industrial relations role, within complex, highly unionized manufacturing, engineering, or industrial environments in the UK & Ireland.
• Demonstrable, hands-on experience in managing industrial action disputes, trade union negotiations, CAC proceedings, and trade union recognition/derecognition.
• Deep expertise in UK and Irish employment law, collective bargaining, collective redundancy processes, and individual/collective dispute resolution.
• Strong analytical and data management skills, with the ability to track complex multi-stakeholder projects and present clear summaries to senior executives.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple complexes, concurrent transformation projects and competing deadlines under high-pressure scenarios.
• Excellent stakeholder management, negotiation, and communication skills, with the ability to engage and influence across all levels (from shop floor delegates to executive leadership).
• Experience creating change management plans, governance models, project charters, and executive-level reporting.
• Pragmatic, pace-oriented approach: able to balance legal and labour relations risk with the speed the business needs, and to influence business leaders without direct authority.

Desired Characteristics

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in human resources, Employment Law, Business Administration, or a related field; CIPD qualification (Level 7) or legal qualification is a strong plus.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to connect operational activity and industrial relations strategies to broader business outcomes.
• Excellent problem-solving, mediation, and conflict-resolution capabilities, particularly during industrial crises.
• Ability to thrive in a highly matrixed, global manufacturing or industrial environment.
• Passion for simplification, process improvement, and digital transformation within HR operations.
• Comfortable working with data, dashboards and digital tracking tools.
• Interest in, and ideally experience of, working within a European Works Council (EWC) context and cross-border European labour relations processes.

What We Offer

• Total Reward: Competitive base salary, car allowance, performance-related bonus, flexible pension scheme, employer-funded private health insurance, income protection, and life assurance.
• Time to Recharge: Generous annual leave entitlement in line with UK/Irish statutory standards and company policy, plus public and bank holidays.
• Flex Choice Programme: A range of optional benefits including dental cover, wellness programmes, additional insurance coverage, and financial planning services.

Why Join Us?

At GE Vernova, you will be part of a team that is shaping the future of energy—and the people who power it. In this role, you will directly influence the operational integrity and social dialogue of our UK and Irish operations, acting as a trusted advisor and strategic leader during a time of significant organisational transformation. Labour relations at GE Vernova is at an early stage of its development, so you will have the opportunity to build and shape the function in the UK & Ireland, with high visibility across the business and the pace of a fast-moving organisation. If you are ready to make a measurable impact across our British and Irish entities and contribute to our broader European success, we would love to hear from you.

Additional Information: Relocation Assistance Provided: No. This is a remote position.