People Executive in London

Department: UK People Team

Location: London, Sea Containers - hybrid 2/3 days onsite

Contract type: 12 Month Fixed Term Contract

Full Time/Part time: Full Time, 35 hours per week

About Ogilvy

At Ogilvy (Part of WPP), our vision is to inspire brands and people to impact the world. We’re driven to create big ideas that contribute significantly to the planet, society, and the bottom line. We believe this is how our clients achieve sustainable growth, and we achieve it by breaking down barriers that restrict talent and ideas.

Our teams work fluidly across five core capabilities: Advertising, Consulting, Experience, PR & Influencer, and Health. This unique approach allows us to innovate at the intersection of talent and expertise – what we call Borderless Creativity. With 132 offices in 83 countries, we seamlessly connect deep cultural insights to deliver multifaceted ideas that drive impact, born from the intersection of platform x culture x technology.

Join a team that consistently pushes boundaries and delivers award‑winning work!

About the Role

We are looking for a People Executive who is passionate about creating a great employee experience to join our fantastic Talent Team on a 12 month fixed‑term contract. You will work with the wider team to support our Talent agenda that helps deliver our key business objectives. This role is hands‑on, with exposure to all areas of HR – perfect for someone at the beginning of their HR journey. We’re seeking people with foundational experience in areas like HR administration or recruitment coordination, ready to make a significant impact and develop their skills.

Employee experience is something each of us in the talent team are truly passionate about and we want you to be too! You always remember how someone made you feel and this couldn’t be truer whether you’re a new joiner, still on your employee journey or coming to the end of one.

As People Executive, you can influence a positive experience from new joiner onboarding and beyond. You’ll have the opportunity to work across all aspects of an employee’s journey, providing seamless support. You’ll play an integral role within the People team, being the first point of contact for all employees and playing a key part in ensuring a positive employee experience – whether that’s confidently delivering the People induction, advising employees on benefits or helping shape our data reporting & dashboards.

You’ll become very familiar with our employee contracts and be the go‑to person when it comes to any queries or answering questions relating to culture or day‑to‑day agency life. You will play an integral part to new joiners’ inductions, welcoming and onboarding them to provide a positive start to their career with Ogilvy.

During the employee lifecycle you will be responsible for ensuring our HR Information System, Workday, is kept up to date and compliant with internal processes and legal requirements. You will provide information to the Payroll and Front of House teams as required to ensure any changes are executed seamlessly.

What You’ll Do

• Understand the importance of operating with tact, empathy and integrity as you’ll be handling sensitive and confidential information.
• Be hands‑on, organised, and deadline driven.
• Demonstrate effective time management skills.
• Prepare all paperwork for employee changes (probations, promotions, contract amendments, salary increases etc).
• Act as the owner of our employee data, maintaining, updating and improving our HRIS system (we have recently transitioned to Workday).
• Work closely with the People Advisors, continuously review team processes, proposing and implementing changes as appropriate.
• Understand and advise on the different types of workers and working arrangements.
• Prioritise tasks/projects in a fast‑paced agency environment.
• Offer support to ensure employees at all stages of their journey have a positive experience when interacting with the Talent team.

What You’ll Need

• Strong administrative and organisational skills, with the ability to manage multiple tasks and priorities.
• A passion for People operations, including onboarding, off‑boarding, benefits administration, and employee relations.
• An understanding of UK employment law and HR best practices would be beneficial.
• An interest in HR systems and tools, we use Workday and Greenhouse here!
• A proactive and solutions‑focused mindset, with the ability to identify and solve problems independently.
• Strong attention to detail and a commitment to operational excellence.
• A passion for employee experience and a dedication to fostering a positive and inclusive workplace culture.
• Demonstrated experience in data analysis and reporting, with the ability to translate data insights into actionable recommendations.
• A continuous learning mindset, with a commitment to staying up‑to‑date with the latest HR trends and best practices.

As a People Executive, you are pro‑active and approach every task with a can‑do attitude. You take pride in your work and strive for operational excellence. You are organised, display a keen eye for detail and are solutions focused. You maintain an awareness and consideration of the wider business context in everything that you do.

We believe that every role here at Ogilvy UK should allow for development and growth. So naturally some of this role will be learning as you work, and we hope that’s okay and what you want too. Please don’t worry if you’re missing a skill or three. It’s our job to provide you with the development to elevate you to the next level. So please don’t be put off applying even if you don’t feel you have everything outlined.

How We Help You Thrive

• 25 days annual leave plus the option to buy up to 5 extra days leave + 1 volunteer day.
• Enhanced family friendly policies, including, adoption and shared parental leave.
• A Flexible Working Model with core working hours: 10am – 4pm.
• A generous pension scheme – you pay in 4% we pay 6%, following probation contributions are matched up to 10.5% (17.5% in total).
• A fantastic Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) provided by Telus which offers brilliant support, expert advice and specialist counselling.
• Help @ Hand – quick free access to a remote GP, mental health support, physio or a medical 2nd opinion.

Our ambition is to attract the very best diverse talent to Ogilvy, and to be the employer of choice in the UK. We want everyone to feel welcome when they join us, and once they’re here, for them to want to stay with us, grow their career, and to feel they belong with us.

We are an equal opportunity employer and we’re committed to creating an inclusive, welcoming environment for everyone who wants to work at Ogilvy. For us, diversity, equity and inclusion is integrated into everything that we do. We believe that for creativity to flourish, everything about how we work must have diversity at its core. Your race, colour, ethnic, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, have no bearing on our hiring decisions, but we encourage everyone to feel free to express their true selves in an environment we are consistently striving to make as inclusive as possible.

We aim to facilitate an accessible and positive application experience for all candidates. If you require any adjustments from us to support you through the process or expect to require any adjustments to working conditions to be able to best perform in the role, please let us know. We are happy to consider all reasonable adjustments.

We want you to be aware that if you live with a disability and you would like to take advantage of our offer of a guaranteed interview under the Disability Confident Scheme, please ensure you fill out our voluntary Equal Opportunities Questionnaire when applying.

At Ogilvy we pride ourselves on being an inclusive and equal opportunities employer. We believe in creating a dynamic work environment that values diversity, equity and inclusion. We strive to recruit from a diverse range of candidates and create an environment which provides the right conditions for belonging. We welcome all applications regardless of race, colour, religion or belief, gender, gender identity, age, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation and physical or mental disability etc. (please note this is not an exhaustive list). We are also actively focussed on encouraging greater representation by bringing more under‑represented talent into our organisation.

We invite you to help us achieve this and hold ourselves accountable for progress and monitor our efforts. You are not required to answer any of the following questions. They are entirely voluntary and will not be viewable to those interviewing you as part of your application or candidate profile.