HR Generalist

Want to help us bring happiness to the world? Want to join an ambitious and fast growing global biscuits and confectionery business investing heavily in iconic global brands, infrastructure and people? Then this is the place for you. As proud bakers and chocolatiers and custodians of iconic global brands, we don’t compromise on the quality of ingredients in our products or on the people we hire. We are looking for entrepreneurial spirits who share our passion for bringing happiness to our consumers and who embody our Winning Traits.

To succeed at pladis you need to be purpose-led, resilient and positive to succeed here because we expect pace and agility, we insist on collaboration and demand accountability. If that is your thing, then pladis offers global ambition, a clear Vision and roadmap for success, challenge, and unrivalled opportunities to learn and make an impact.

This role provides hands-on, operational HR support to a unionised food manufacturing site undergoing cultural and engagement transformation. Working closely with the HR Business Partner, site leadership team and line managers, the HR Generalist plays a key role in strengthening employee engagement, improving attendance, and embedding consistent people practices across the site. The role focuses on driving engagement and capability and performance at a local level, supporting managers to create inclusive, motivated and high-performing teams, and ensuring colleague voice is heard and acted upon.

With a strong and visible shop-floor presence, the role supports day-to-day people activity, owns the site absence management process, and acts as a trusted point of contact for managers and colleagues. By translating people initiatives into meaningful day-to-day experiences for employees, the role supports a positive site culture where colleagues feel engaged, valued and aligned to business goals.

Your purpose is to deliver high-quality, site-based HR support that strengthens employee engagement, attendance and manager capability. You will translate people priorities into effective day-to-day practices that create a positive, inclusive and high-performing working environment. This is a critical role for the site in supporting effective delivery of generalist HR activity and in contributing to the development and deployment of both colleague communications and a variety of programmes across Engagement, Inclusion, Diversity & Equity, and the embedding of our Employee Value Proposition.

Key Deliverables:

• Play a key role in supporting with the development and delivery of site HR plans.
• Own site absence management through detailed trend analysis, KPI reporting and action planning, driving sustained reduction in absence levels across the site.
• Monitor and analyse absence data, identifying hotspots and risks, and supporting line managers with effective attendance conversations and absence hearings.
• Activate site wellbeing initiatives in collaboration with Occupational Health and HR CoE’s, ensuring alignment to attendance, engagement and wellbeing priorities.
• Lead on employee engagement activity at site level, including managing the engagement survey process, coordinating focus groups, analysing results and supporting the development of meaningful local action plans.
• Track progress against engagement actions and work with managers to maintain momentum and accountability.
• Act as a champion for colleague voice, supporting forums, listening groups, team briefings and feedback mechanisms.
• Partner with managers to identify engagement pain points (e.g. attendance, turnover, morale) and co-create practical solutions.
• Create, coordinate and manage clear, consistent and engaging employee communications that reinforce site priorities, cultural change initiatives and key people processes.
• Conduct site based HR onboarding activity, ensuring a positive, engaging and consistent new starter experience.
• Support interviewing and assessment day activity for shop floor and non-leadership roles.
• Provide coaching and practical guidance to Team Managers on a range of HR and people management topics to build confidence, consistency and engagement.
• Manage HR KPI data analytics, reporting and data management, including absence, engagement and people cycle metrics.
• Manage the BAU People Cycle for the site, including reporting, reminders, data analysis and coordination to ensure timely and effective delivery.
• Support the HR Business Partner on HR projects and organisational changes by providing coordination, data, insights and operational input.
• In collaboration with site functional teams and the L&D CoE, identify soft skills training and development needs with departments and support budgeting and planning for delivery.
• Work with the HR Business Partner to develop the site community engagement and CSR plan, ensuring alignment with local priorities and centrally driven initiatives. Own its execution.
• Activate recognition, wellbeing and inclusion initiatives at a site level in collaboration with HR CoE’s.
• Provide ad hoc employee support as required, acting as a visible, approachable and trusted HR presence on site.
• Manage Working Time Directive (WTD) reporting and compliance at site level.
• Own and maintain the site job description library, ensuring accuracy, consistency and governance.
• Own site people data accuracy, conducting annual audits and data cleanse activity to ensure quality of data.
• Manage and support supplier and agency audits for the site, including SEDEX, BRC and other compliance based audits.
• Support the HR Business Partner with industrial relations activity as required, including preparation of data, documentation and meeting support.
• Support recognition, wellbeing and inclusion initiatives that reinforce positive behaviours and increase employee connection to the site.
• Maintain a regular presence on the shop floor to build trust, visibility and credibility, helping reinforce site values and expected behaviours.

Key Relationships:

• Internal: HR Business Partner, General Manager, Site Leadership Team, HR CoE’s
• External: Suppliers, Colleges/Universities, Recruitment Agencies

What do you need for this role?

Essential:

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to listen, engage, influence, and empower to drive forward the engagement agenda.
• Well-developed planning, prioritization, organizational, and presentation skills.
• Ability to effectively drive own workload and manage priorities.
• Proven experience of working in a HR environment and understanding of interconnections/drivers of Employee Engagement/Employee Life Cycle.
• Passion and drive to challenge the norm to create a better work environment for all colleagues.
• Ability to build respected, trusted, and supportive relationships with key partners.
• Comprehensive experience of working with a range of people policies.
• Knowledge and experience of industrial relations issues, including resolution of issues through facilitation.
• HR systems knowledge & experience.
• A personal desire to continuously learn and develop to ensure new practices and thinking are understood and adopted.

Desirable:

• Previous experience of a manufacturing environment.
• CIPD Level 5 or equivalent.

Diversity and inclusion is central to everything we do and is reflected across our business. Pladis brings together brands and people from around the globe – and this diversity is our great strength. We’re an equal opportunities employer and believe in fostering an inclusive environment where we celebrate diversity of thinking and respect everyone’s distinctive qualities and perspectives. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform key job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

Pladis is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to hiring a diverse workforce. All openings will be filled based on qualifications without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, marital status, veteran status, disability, age, religion or any other classification protected by law.

We operate a strict Preferred Supplier List. If you are a recruitment agency and wish to submit candidates to be considered for this vacancy, you must have agreed to, and signed, our terms of business. We will not accept CVs from any other sources other than those currently on our PSL. We will not pay a fee for any candidate that has not been represented by a provider on our PSL.