Senior People Advisor in Chirk, Wrexham

K.A.G. Recruitment Consultancy is partnering exclusively with our client, a leading Food Manufacturing company based in Wrexham, who is looking for an exceptional Senior People Advisor to join their team.

Location: Wrexham

Reporting to: Head of People

Salary: £35,000 to £40,000 DOE

Hours: Monday to Friday 8:00am to 4:30pm

Purpose of the role: To provide senior operational People support to the Head of People & Culture, acting as the lead advisor and escalation point across site. This role will take ownership of complex employee relations, drive engagement and culture, and ensure key People processes are completed consistently and effectively. Working visibly across the business and across shift patterns, the Senior People Advisor will coach managers, deliver training and inductions, use employee feedback and People data to identify improvements, and introduce better ways of working.

Your Role:

• Work closely with the Head of People & Culture to deliver People priorities, provide cover and delegated support where appropriate, coordinate key activity across the People Team and act as the escalation point for the People Advisor and managers.
• Lead on significant and complex ER matters including disciplinary, grievance, capability, performance, absence, flexible working and appeals.
• Manage ER cases through to drive year-on-year reductions in sickness absence, ensuring return-to-work interviews and absence reviews are completed and documented effectively.
• Drive consistent completion of probations, performance reviews/IDPs, one-to-ones, stay interviews, return-to-work meetings and absence reviews.
• Deliver accurate People KPIs and dashboards covering turnover, absence, ER, engagement and diversity, translating data into actionable recommendations.
• Build confidence in People support through accessible, clear and commercially focused advice, measured through feedback and engagement channels.
• Deliver appraisals/IDPs, engagement action plans, talent and succession reviews on time, with measurable improvements following each cycle.
• Support the Head of People & Culture in keeping People practices aligned with UK employment law, ACAS guidance, equality requirements, GDPR, right-to-work obligations and company policy.
• Deliver the manager development programmes each year, with measurable evidence of effectiveness.
• Coach managers to manage people matters confidently and consistently.
• Design, coordinate and deliver practical training, policy briefings and manager workshops, and support the delivery of engaging new starter inductions so expectations, values and key processes are understood from day one.
• Provide day-to-day guidance, coaching and support to People Team colleagues, improve consistency and build capability, enabling the People Advisor to focus on first-line advisory and employee lifecycle delivery.
• Contribute to year-on-year improvements in engagement and culture measures and maintain high satisfaction among managers and senior leaders with People support.
• Maintain a flexible approach to working hours so employees and managers across different shifts can access appropriate People support. This may require occasional earlier starts, later finishes or adjusted hours in response to operational, ER, training or engagement needs.

Skills & Experience:

You will have strong generalist HR/People experience with proven capability in managing complex employee relations cases end-to-end and a strong understanding of UK employment law and ACAS guidance, with sound professional judgement. Previous experience of improving employee engagement and culture and confident in influencing and challenging managers at various levels across the business. You will possess experience in delivering training, briefings, workshops and/or employee inductions and have a highly organised approach and be process-driven, with the ability to ensure key actions and reviews take place on time. You will be a strong communicator who works well within teams and on their own initiative, with the ability to build trust with employees, managers and senior leaders. It is highly desirable for you to hold a CIPD Level 5 Qualification or have the equivalent HR Generalist experience, including a strong track record of managing complex employee relations cases from start to finish and experience within FMCG or food manufacturing would be advantageous but this isn’t essential. Flexible working patterns is required to support the operational needs of the site and employees across various shifts.