Senior HR Advisor in Skipton

JN Bentley is a leading civil engineering and construction organisation that directly employs over 2500 people. We are a fast-growing business and are successfully working alongside companies such as National Grid, Rolls Royce, Yorkshire Water, United Utilities, Welsh Water, Severn Trent Water, Environment Agency, and the Coal Authority. We’re looking for a Senior HR Advisor to join our HR team and lead a group of 4 HR Advisors delivering a full generalist remit. Reporting to the HR Manager, you’ll partner closely with senior leaders to drive continuous improvement across employee relations, performance and absence management, talent and succession planning, and employee development, as well as upskilling managers across the business.

You’ll play a key role in embedding centrally driven people initiatives, ensuring change is understood, landed and sustained across the business.

As a Senior HR Advisor, you will:

• Lead, coach and develop a team of HR Advisors, setting clear objectives and supporting performance and development through check-in conversations.
• Build a resilient, adaptable advisory team that delivers an excellent operational service and identifies value-adding improvements within their units.
• Handle escalated, high-risk and high-profile ER matters, including appeals and TUPE.
• Monitor and balance team workload through regular case and tracker reviews, ensuring timely progress and quality outcomes.
• Work collaboratively with the other Lead HR Advisor to drive consistency of approaches to Advisory services across our varying T&C’s.
• Review policies and standard procedures in line with employment legislation updates and best practice.
• Ensure ER cases are managed in a timely manner and in line with policy, and that learnings and recommendations are captured, tracked, shared and followed through.
• Coach and upskill managers on people policies and practices and support Advisors to adopt a coaching-led approach with their managers.
• Work collaboratively with the Lead HR Advisor (Admin) and wider people functions (projects, wellbeing, L&D and recruitment) to align processes and deliver a seamless end-to-end employee experience.
• Support delivery of the Role of the People Manager upskilling programme.
• Use HR data and insights to identify themes and recommend actions for improvement.
• Provide quality assurance when needed and escalate key risks and concerns to the HR Manager.
• Support the HR Manager with compliance activities, including immigration/visa and right to work processes, ensuring monitoring is in place across units.
• Lead global mobility processes for outbound and inbound assignments (short-term, long-term and permanent transfers), partnering with stakeholders to ensure a smooth experience.
• Support with the delivery of other HR related projects/activity as required.

What you’ll need:

• Proven HR advisory experience with strong employee relations capability, including managing complex and escalated cases.
• Experience of managing a team as well as coaching and mentoring others.
• Excellent knowledge of UK employment law and HR best practice.
• Confidence in influencing senior stakeholders and coaching managers to build capability.
• Experience supporting the development and delivery of HR-focused manager upskilling.
• Proficient in the use of Microsoft Excel and the ability to create and analyse data.
• Able to spot themes, recommend actions and track outcomes against key HR measures.
• Desirable: experience with immigration/right to work compliance and/or global mobility processes.

What’s in it for you:

We offer hybrid working with a requirement to be in the Skipton office for a minimum of 3 days per week, as well as the need to travel to other site and office locations as required. The role offers a competitive salary, a fantastic working culture, and a supportive environment with access to a wide range of financial, lifestyle, health, and wellbeing benefits.