Senior People Advisor in Hatfield

Contract type: Permanent

Location: Hatfield (Hybrid working – 3 days in the office), with occasional visits to our Sunderland office

Working hours per week: 40 hours

Level: Mid level

Application Closing Date: Thursday 19th February 2026

About Us

Our mission is to deliver joy in every shop, through unbeatable choice, unrivalled service, and reassuringly good value. We’re Ocado Retail, a market-leading joint venture between Ocado Group and M&S, and the world’s largest dedicated online supermarket, ocado.com.

About The Team And The Role

As part of the People Team, you’ll play a huge role in helping Ocado Retail colleagues continue to love what we do. We’re a small, close knit team, focused on recruiting, developing and retaining top talent, driving high engagement, performance and creating an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive.

This role will support across two sites, both in our Head Office site in Hatfield, and our Customer Hub in Sunderland, with occasional visits to our Sunderland office. You will report directly to our People Partner.

As a Senior People Advisor, you’ll get the chance to work across our people management community in Customer, Commercial and CFO teams. You’ll apply your expert generalist HR to ensure we maintain a high-performing and inclusive workplace. This is a great opportunity to develop Partnering skills, coaching people leaders to solve problems and access our policies in the best way.

What You’ll Do

• Employee Relations: Act as a trusted partner for sensitive or complex employee relations issues, owning the end-to-end case management and providing advice across all levels of the organisation.
• Policy best practice: Provide generalist support across areas such as policy understanding and deployment, including hybrid working, family leave and employment relations.
• Coaching People Leaders: You will be required to coach, collaborate, challenge and empower our people leaders to develop and deliver solutions that consider emerging thinking, colleague experience and support best practice, employment law and our ORL values.
• People Partnering Core Cycle Activity: In collaboration with the wider People Partnering team, support the delivery of all core cycle activities, including Talent Review, Objective setting and Annual Reward Review.
• People Communications: Take full ownership of the People Team’s primary communication channels, moving beyond query resolution to proactively automate repetitive tasks and optimise the internal mobility experience for both managers and employees.
• Data driven decisions: Maintain a data-driven approach to your advisory work, using people metrics to spot trends and identify areas for improvement.

Who You Are

You’ll have strong working knowledge of UK employment law, policies and procedures with experience of coaching and influencing leaders to deliver tailored solutions that support both the colleague and the business and be confident in assessing business and colleague risks, providing sound, empathetic advice.

Thrive in an evolving, fast-paced environment by balancing resilience with a sharp attention to detail. You’ll be able to effectively manage competing priorities and diverse stakeholders, ensuring that even in ambiguous situations, you deliver high-quality outcomes and exceptional internal customer service.

Effective at influencing, facilitating, presenting, mediating, and problem solving, with the ability and confidence to tailor communication style to work with stakeholders at all levels. Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.

What’s In It For You

By joining Ocado Retail, you’ll have the chance to experience life at the world’s largest online retailer, work with an amazing bunch of people who challenge what’s possible each day, and grow your skills and career in online retail.

Here’s a taste of what we offer:

• Health & Wellbeing: Private medical insurance with option to add your family, Digital GP appointments, market-leading family policies, mental health support, discounted gym memberships, dental insurance, and more.
• Spend & Save: Annual bonus scheme split between personal and business objectives, recognition with reward platform, up to 7% matched pension contributions, 15% Ocado discount, 20% M&S discount, free breakfast every day in the office, electric vehicle leasing scheme, and free shuttle bus from Hatfield station to the office.
• Never miss the moments that matter: Hybrid working, 26 days holiday plus 8 flexible bank holidays, options to buy extra holiday, 2 weeks work from anywhere, and lifestyle break opportunities.

Our Hiring Process

Lucky for us, we receive a high volume of applications and genuinely appreciate the time and effort invested by every candidate. To ensure a fair and thorough process, every application is reviewed by a member of our team. If your skills and experience are a strong match, a Talent Partner will contact you to discuss the role and guide you through the next steps of our hiring process.

Your Application and AI

In the spirit of innovation, we welcome you to use AI tools in your application, just as we use them in our own business at Ocado Retail. However, as you leverage this technology, please don’t lose sight of the most important element: your unique self. Your experiences, passions, and personality are what truly set you apart.

Everyone’s welcome

We’re an equal opportunities employer, which means that we make sure all potential colleagues are treated fairly and equally. We want to ensure everyone has a fair chance to apply; if you need this job description in an alternative format (e.g., larger print, different document type, etc.), please reach out to us at careers@ocadoretail.com and we’ll be happy to assist you, and if you require reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know on the application form.