People Advisor (HR) - Maternity Cover Contract in Strood

At Leigh Academies Trust, our people make everything possible. As we continue to drive operational excellence across our academies, we are looking for a practical, proactive, and empathetic People Advisor to join our Central Services People team.

This is the next step in your HR career, stepping up from a People Officer position into a role with genuine autonomy, case ownership, and impact.

The Role

Working alongside our People Partners, you will deliver high-quality, trusted HR advice across the Trust. You will balance direct employee relations support with smooth operational execution, ensuring our staff feel supported and our processes run seamlessly.

• Act as the direct point of contact for line managers and staff via our Halo helpdesk, delivering practical guidance on policies, family leave, flexible working, and everyday employment matters.
• Guide managers through ER casework - including grievances, disciplinaries, capability, and absence management - and support formal hearing chairs with clear advice, minute-taking, and robust investigation reports.
• Maintain high data accuracy in iTrent, handling contractual adjustments, promotions, transfers, offboarding, and payroll-impacting changes in line with GDPR.
• Produce and analyse data reports on absence patterns, turnover, and trends to help shape proactive interventions.
• Champion our staff recognition schemes (LAT Moments, Viva Engage) and help signpost staff to wellbeing resources, including our Employee Assistance Programme.
• Provide administrative and advisory support during organisational change, restructures, and TUPE processes.

What We Are Looking For

• Demonstrable experience in an HR advisory or senior officer capacity, with strong working knowledge of UK employment law and ER casework.
• Hands-on experience managing HRIS platforms (iTrent experience is highly desirable) and ticketing systems.
• Ability to provide objective, plain-English advice to managers while maintaining a human-centred, supportive approach.
• Excellent attention to detail across payroll updates, data management, and confidential record-keeping.
• A proactive team player eager to contribute to trust-wide equity, diversity, inclusion, and process improvements.

Why Join Us?

As part of the One LAT team, you will work in a supportive, forward-thinking environment that genuinely values your professional development. We offer a clear pathway through our Goals & Journeys framework, helping you build your expertise while making a tangible difference to the teams supporting thousands of students every day.

This is a full-time, fixed-term position (maternity cover for 1 year) offering a salary of £30,108 - £37,610 based on experience. This is working Monday to Friday, 8:00am - 4:00pm, and a 3:30pm finish on a Friday with a 30-minute lunch break.

Note that whilst the position is offered on a maternity cover basis initially of up to one year, every effort will be made to offer a substantive position thereafter within the wider family of academies across Leigh Academies Trust. The central Recruitment Team will keep in touch with you throughout your contract to discuss options available to you.

Our Commitment to Safeguarding, Equality & Diversity

Leigh Academies Trust and all of our academies are committed to ensuring the highest levels of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of our pupils, and we expect all our staff and volunteers to share this commitment. This role involves regulated activity relevant to children, and it is a criminal offence for anyone barred from engaging in regulated activity with children to apply for this position.
We adopt a fair, robust and consistent recruitment process across all academies and business units, in line with Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance. This includes online checks for shortlisted candidates, and you can read more about our approach on our Careers site. All offers of employment are subject to an Enhanced DBS check, references and, where applicable, a prohibition from teaching check.
As a Trust, we are passionate about diversity and recognise that as individuals, we all bring something unique to the role, regardless of any protected characteristics, which is why we treat all of our people equally, without compromise. We are committed to providing equality and fairness throughout our recruitment and employment practices, and not discriminating on any grounds.