Head of People & Culture Business Partner (Head Office or Restaurant Support Centre)
The Head of People & Culture Business Partner plays a crucial role in executing our People & Culture Strategy. In this position you will partner with C‑suite business leaders and their functions at the Restaurant Support Centre (RSC) to align organisational and functional strategies, goals and priorities with our vision and values. You will advise and coach managers and employees throughout the employee life cycle and drive key people priorities with our Centre of Excellence teams in Talent Development, Reward and Employee Engagement. This is a hybrid role based in the RSC in Woking, two days a week.
Benefits
- Flexible, hybrid working with our Restaurant Support Centre located in Woking, Surrey – a 24‑minute train ride from London Waterloo. Depending on job requirement, travel across the UK & Ireland may be required.
- Generous pension with up to 11% company contribution.
- ‘Fri‑Yay’ time – finish up at 1 pm every Friday, all year round.
- Live Well Days – 5 days per year to disconnect from our day‑to‑day (in addition to 25 days annual leave and bank holidays).
- You can buy or sell up to 5 extra days of your core annual leave allowance each year.
- After 5 years’ service, annual holiday allowance increases to 30 days.
- Bonus – reward through our bonus scheme when company and individual goals are reached.
- Wellness – access to wellbeing initiatives and programmes, including Telus Health, and 1:1 Mental Health coaching sessions with Sanctus.
- Private healthcare, including access to Digital GP, with the option to increase to include family cover.
- Flexible and voluntary benefits including Dental Insurance, Health Screening and Gym Discounts.
- Insurances – life and income protection insurance for all colleagues.
- Study Support may be available for job‑related qualifications.
- Parental Leave – enhanced paid leave and flexible return‑to‑work options.
- Colleague Discount – 25% discount on KFC.
Our Commitment to You
Our customers come from all walks of life and so do our teams. We value, support, and celebrate the things that make Team KFC authentic and original and welcome all candidates – regardless of age, background, ethnicity, gender, ability, religion, or sexual orientation. We welcome applications from under‑represented groups in the industry such as women, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Let us know if you need any additional support with your application.
What you’ll do
- Partner with functional leaders to shape and deliver the people strategy, ensuring broad alignment to commercial priorities, growth ambitions, and long‑term capability needs.
- Partner with senior leadership to shape organisation design, capability, and workforce strategy.
- Translate strategy into clear, prioritised execution plans that drive measurable business outcomes.
- Act as a key member of the P&C leadership team, contributing beyond people topics.
- Act as a trusted advisor to C‑suite and senior leaders, providing challenge, insight, and perspective.
- Drive high‑quality decision making through data, insight, and strong judgment.
- Hold leaders to account on talent, performance, and culture standards.
- Navigate complex, high‑stakes decisions with credibility and confidence.
- Lead organisation design and workforce planning, ensuring the business is structured for performance, scale and the future.
- Build and embed a robust talent architecture (succession, performance, development, mobility).
- Raise the bar on leadership capability and accountability across the organisation.
- Make and support tough people decisions where needed to drive performance.
- Shape and embed a high‑performance, values‑led culture across the RSC.
- Ensure culture is driven through leadership behaviour, not just programmes.
- Use engagement and inclusion insights to drive targeted, meaningful action.
- Champion a best‑in‑class employee experience that supports performance and retention.
- Shape and drive enterprise‑wide change and transformation initiatives (e.g. growth, ways of working).
- Ensure disciplined execution, clear communication, and strong adoption of initiatives.
- Anticipate future capability needs and build the organisation ahead of demand.
- Build strong relationships with employees and coaches across the RSC and be a culture leader.
- Bring the outside in and listen to our people to design and embed new ways of working, policies and practices that maximise team and individual productivity.
- Coaching our people to continually deliver exceptional performance that they feel proud of and support talent mobility.
- Strong interpersonal and teamwork skills; collaborative nature; willingness to work constructively with input from coaches and peers; intellectual curiosity and great judgement skills.
Experience
- 10+ years of business partnering experience in a People and Culture Generalist role at a senior level.
- Demonstrated experience in influencing senior management and leadership teams, and ability to strategically solve problems.
- Strong coaching and facilitation skills experience.
- Experience in Employment Relations and knowledge of existing and upcoming employment legislation.
- Self‑starter, able to navigate, multi‑task, manage own workload, comfortable with dealing with ambiguity and working with a high degree of autonomy to deliver results.
- Talent Architecture & Succession Planning – building strong leadership pipelines.
- Global mobility experience a plus.
Job description
As a multi‑billion‑pound business with over 1000 restaurants, we take ambition seriously. You’ll be treated with respect and supported in everything you do as you roll up your sleeves and play your part in bringing finger‑lickin’ good chicken to our customers. There are many opportunities at KFC.
