People Support Operations Manager

Department: People Support / HR Shared Services

Reports to: Head of HR Services

Location: Hybrid, with regular presence in Birmingham and sometimes London, with occasional travel to India as and when required

What's the role about?

The People Support Operations Manager is responsible for the operational effectiveness, quality and performance of the People Support HR Shared Services function. The role ensures consistent, high-quality delivery of core people services, manages operational risk, drives service improvement, and supports the simplification, standardisation and digital enablement of HR processes to improve colleague and manager experience.

What will I be doing?

• Operational leadership: Lead the day-to-day delivery of People Support, ensuring work is managed and prioritised effectively and standards are consistently achieved. Oversee workflows, escalations, risk, quality and operational performance across HRSS activity, ensuring a best-in-class service to the business. Ensure processes are delivered in line with employment legislation, internal policy, standard operating procedures and service level expectations.
• Team leadership and capability: Lead, motivate and develop colleagues within a high-volume, fast-paced service environment. Build team capability through coaching, feedback, training and development. Foster an inclusive, collaborative and continuously improving team culture, with a strong focus on colleague engagement and wellbeing.
• Service improvement and transformation: Identify and deliver opportunities to simplify, standardise and improve HRSS processes, reducing complexity and improving user experience. Drive the use of technology and automation, including agentic AI where appropriate, to improve efficiency and service experience. Support wider transformation initiatives across People Support and the broader HR function. Work closely with HR leaders, centres of excellence, operational leaders and delivery partners to ensure services meet business needs and risks are managed effectively. Act as a trusted operational lead for complex issues, escalations and cross-functional service challenges. Maintain effective feedback loops with stakeholders to continuously refine services, improve colleague experience and strengthen operational delivery.
• Governance, insight and control: Use MI, service data and operational trends to monitor performance, identify issues, support decision-making and prioritise improvement activity. Support audit, compliance and governance activity, ensuring documentation, controls and process adherence are robust and up to date. Ensure appropriate operational resilience, risk management and continuity planning are in place across People Support.

What are we looking for?

• Knowledge and experience: Strong experience in HR operations or a comparable people services environment. Good understanding of UK employment legislation, HR policy application and operational risk in a complex organisation. Experience of leading teams and delivering services in a fast-paced, high-volume environment. Experience of process improvement, digital enablement or automation within people operations. Experience of working with multiple stakeholders, including senior leaders and delivery partners.
• Skills and behaviours: Strong operational leadership and decision-making capability. Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills. Strong analytical thinking and ability to use data to diagnose problems and drive action. Ability to manage competing priorities, work at pace and maintain quality under pressure. Commercial, pragmatic and customer-focused approach to service delivery. Commitment to continuous improvement, collaboration, inclusion and high professional standards.

What does success look like?

• Consistent achievement of service levels, quality standards and operational KPIs.
• Improved colleague and manager experience across HRSS.
• Reduced process friction, greater standardisation and increased use of digital solutions.
• Strong team capability, engagement and accountability.
• Effective management of operational risk, compliance and service continuity.

Our market-leading offering provides you with benefits that suit your lifestyle. We have a virtual GP on hand for you and members of your household. So you can get expert advice by video or phone without having to leave your home. We offer financial wellbeing assistance through our Salary Finance scheme. For example, you could access 50% of your earned pay before payday for a small fee. Salary Finance also offers competitive loans. When you join us, we’ll give you a link to our flexible lifestyle benefits platform, Choices. You might choose to purchase up to five extra days’ holiday each year. You might buy critical illness insurance, seek dental treatment or buy technology products at an affordable cost. There are many choices! We give you access to high street discounts from thousands of well-known retailers, gyms and more through our MiDeals platform. And we have a cycle-to-work scheme. Life cover of up to four times your salary is available. We also offer enhanced pension contributions, a save-as-you-earn scheme, and a Mitie Matching Share Plan (you could even be awarded free shares in Mitie). We award our employees with Mitie Stars as recognition for their hard work. There are cash prizes up for grabs each month and at the end of the year there’s a chance to scoop a top prize of £10,000! Our success is a direct result of the experience and quality of our people. Progressing your career is therefore a top priority for us. We offer a diverse variety of training and development avenues via a wide selection of learning resources to suit you. Since 1987, Mitie’s 80,000 employees have been maintaining companies globally. We are the UK’s leading facilities management and professional services company, and our clients range from household names in banking, critical government sites as well as hospitals and schools. Together our diversity makes us stronger.