People Business Partner in Watford

Obsidian is a specialist professional services firm working in complex and challenging environments around the world. We partner with governments, intergovernmental organisations and third sector actors to address security, stability and resilience challenges, delivering practical and ethical solutions with real-world impact. Our work combines deep contextual understanding with on-the-ground delivery, often in places where others cannot operate effectively. Our team draws on experience from government, military, private and third sectors, united by a strong purpose and professional integrity. We value judgement, collaboration and delivery over hierarchy.

Following a period of rapid growth, Obsidian continues to expand its geographical footprint and scale of its work, while strengthening the foundations that support our people and long term impact.

Background & Role Overview

Having grown at pace, we have identified a need to invest in our People Team and create a high performing, agile function that acts as an enabler to our organisation and our colleagues and supports our overall business strategy and growth agenda. The People Business Partner acts as trusted advisor to managers and colleagues, providing guidance, support and actions that strengthens performance, culture and colleague experience. Blending hands-on delivery with strategic insight, the role partners with colleagues across the People Team, and plays a pivotal role in delivering the team’s objective to create a seamless, compliant and engaging colleague experience, providing expert guidance and coaching that enables leaders and colleagues to perform their best.

Location UK Remote

Hours of Work 40 hours per week

Contract Type 12-month Fixed Term Contract

Responsibilities

• Act as a trusted Business Partner to support and coach managers and leaders, providing guidance aligned to, and compliant with local legislation whilst also ensuring the organisation's commercial needs are considered.
• Foster our people first values and culture, embedding a positive work environment, coaching managers to enable them to confidently address employee concerns, performance issues and general employee relations matters.
• Act as the local subject matter expert in the creation and implementation of the UK sections of the Global Employee Handbook; including employment policies, processes and procedures that balance adherence to legislation but also recognise the organisation's culture, strategy and commercial objectives.
• Champion Wellbeing and DE&I initiatives that reflect the organisations’ values - People, Purpose, Profit.
• Support and lead engagement and culture initiatives, including talent and succession planning, performance management to a high-performing teams culture across the organisation.
• Proactively seek efficiency and quality opportunities to continuously improve how we work.
• Provide local and legal expertise and knowledge to support the Talent Acquisition team and hiring managers to ensure hiring processes are compliant and effective.
• Utilising regional market knowledge and expertise to support local team (Talent and Leadership) with compensation and benefit guidance and recommendations to ensure our colleague offering is attractive and sustainable.
• Work in collaboration with the wider People Team, supporting on global initiatives to maximise the team’s effectiveness and efficiency.
• In conjunction with the People Operations Specialist, ensure the integrity of our employee data in our HRIS platform (currently Bamboo HR) and SharePoint, including leading data audits and implementing corrective actions as required.
• Utilise HR reports and dashboards (weekly, monthly, quarterly, ad hoc), to provide data-driven insights to managers, identifying trends and improvement opportunities and initiatives.
• Contribute to wider People Team projects designed to build out policies, processes, and skills across the organisation to improve the employee experience.
• Provide subject matter expertise on UK legislation and HR best practice.
• Working in collaboration with wider business areas, including project involvement to ensure a seamless employee experience, providing HR subject matter expertise as necessary.
• Act as HR note taker during meetings as required.

Requirements

Essential

• CIPD Level 5 HR / People Business Partnering experience in a fast-paced, complex environment.
• Solid understanding of UK employment legislation.
• Proven ability to coach and influence managers at all levels.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Office 365 (including Excel, SharePoint, Outlook, Teams).
• Strategic thinker with strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret people data and provide insights.
• Exceptional attention to detail and commitment to accuracy.
• Experience using Bamboo HR, or similar HRIS platform.
• Strong organisational and time management skills, takes ownership of work activities.
• Commitment to delivering an excellent candidate and colleague experience.
• Experience supporting change management and organisational development initiatives.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to deal with information in a confidential manner.
• Ability to work to strict deadlines.
• Strong stakeholder management and relationship building skills.

Desirable

• Experience working in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience of working with self-employed contractors.
• Experience working in a multi-regional, multi entity organisation.
• Experience working with teams in Middle East countries and environments.