Head of Human Resources in England

Location: North of England in one of our Large Hub offices, Manchester, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow.

Role Objectives

The Head of HR (Commercial People Partner) acts as an advisor to leaders, supporting the Head of Commercial People Partnering in translating their commercial strategies into forward-looking people plans that drive performance, productivity and growth. The role leverages workforce insight, data and market intelligence to anticipate risk and opportunity and help ensure the right capability, capacity and cost profile for the future in the part of the business that they partner with.

Role Responsibilities

Business and Workforce Planning

• Develop a good understanding of the given area of the business, its commercial plans and priorities (across the short (0-12 months), medium (12 – 24 months) and longer (+24 months) term).
• Translate business and associated P&C strategies into organisation, role and capability implications for the part of the business.
• In partnership with the relevant business stakeholders, Head of Commercial People Partnering and Head of P&C, contribute to the development of a relevant and commercially grounded people plan (including a workforce plan) to deliver on the above.
• Be the voice of business needs and priorities into the P&C function.
• Proactively review dashboards, performance data and workforce signals to spot emerging business risks and opportunities.
• Develop proactive interventions where leading indicators signal engagement, capability or capacity risk.

Delivering People Priorities

• Implement, promote, and execute key people related initiatives.
• Deliver and monitor interventions that enhance productivity, engagement and organisational effectiveness in the given part of the business.
• Provide knowledge of business context and needs to Experience teams (e.g. L&D, Reward), supporting development of products and services.
• Support deployment and adoption of P&C services in relevant area.
• Work with the Head of Commercial People Partnering and Head of P&C to deliver people related activity relating to business change and reorganisations.
• Participate in cross-functional teams to deliver people projects that solve key business challenges.

Attracting, Retaining & Developing Talent

• Leveraging insight from a workforce plan, work in close partnership with Talent Acquisition to build a good pipeline of talent and enable them to deliver timely and quality fill to vacancies.
• Deliver succession planning and proactive talent management, utilising agreed global frameworks and tools, helping spot high potential colleagues, identify retention risks and associated actions.
• Use external labour market insight to anticipate talent supply constraints and advise leaders on performance issues.
• Aligned with our global DEI strategy, ensure that wellbeing and DE&I considerations are embedded, and act as a strong advocate for our approaches on this within your business area.
• Contribute to the identification of future skills requirements for the given area of the business, feeding that into the Learning COE and in future workforce plans.

Supporting Greater Performance Edge

• Ensure that Being my Best frameworks and performance expectations are understood and embedded, supporting upskilling of management as appropriate.
• Support managers to have the confidence, capability and mindset to manage underperformance.
• Play your part in helping build a culture of everyday feedback to support performance goals.
• Ensure timely and effective resolution of employee relations issues, escalating the most complex cases to the Head of Commercial People Partnering.

Enhancing Culture & Engagement

• Ensure clear understanding of current levels of engagement and key areas for improvement within the given business area, leveraging Your Voice data, local colleague listening etc.
• Work with the relevant business leaders to create and oversee delivery of engagement action plans.
• Feed insight on engagement issues and opportunities into the wider P&C community.
• Be fully aligned with the cultural evolution journey Hays is on and seek to reflect that in plans, delivery, and how behaviours are recognised and challenged within the stakeholder group and P&C.

Knowledge, Qualifications & Experience

• Credible People business partnering experience, with a track record in contributing to and delivering on people and workforce plans.
• Experience in succession planning with senior stakeholders with a focus on action and delivery.
• A good understanding of employee engagement and track record in supporting business teams to deliver improvements.
• Experience in delivery of talent and performance management within business teams.
• Experience in employee relations and delivery of organisation design.
• Comfortable with analysing data, identifying trends and making appropriate recommendations.
• An advocate for equity, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing with experience of embedding these within business planning.

Skills and Competencies

• Able to effectively manage and influence stakeholders at all levels.
• Pragmatic: able to deliver guidance in a fast paced, complex environment, and communicates clearly and openly to win support and challenge business leaders.
• Commercially focused; able to deliver commercial solutions which also fit People good practice requirements and demonstrate excellent execution skills.
• Highly organised, can work under pressure and to deadlines.
• Able to problem solve and challenge the ‘norm’.
• Demonstrates behaviours that support and reflect the Hays valued behaviours.
• Collaborative with an appreciation of global/local needs.
• Good attention to detail.
• Complete discretion and confidentiality.
• Able to prioritise and maintain focus on goals that have the biggest impact to business performance.
• Ability to spot issues and identify solutions independently before they become a blocker, and escalate appropriately where relevant.
• Curious and creative, able to look for new ways to do things to drive performance and success both inside and outside of your immediate responsibility.