HR & People Communications Manager - UK&I

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 because we expect pace and agility, 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.

What will this role achieve? The Internal HR Communications Manager is responsible for translating the HR and people strategy into clear, engaging communications that align with pladis’ overall narrative, culture, values and corporate brand. They will be responsible for the delivery of all people communications, including through corporate communication channels, helping colleagues understand what’s happening, why it matters and what it means for them. Working in close partnership with Corporate Communications, this role acts as the single point of accountability for internal people messaging, safeguarding tone, clarity and consistency across all channels and audiences. It plays a critical role in strengthening trust, alignment and engagement across our UK&I colleague population.

What will be your key deliverables?

• Internal people messaging & narrative: Shape the end-to-end internal people narrative and lead on comms planning across all HR-related communication (change, reward, performance, engagement, wellbeing, IDE, policy and culture). Translate complex or sensitive HR topics into clear, relevant and accessible messaging for different colleague audiences. Act as a guardian of tone, sequencing and clarity, particularly for high impact or sensitive messages (e.g. organisational change, restructuring, pay, policy shifts). Ensure messaging is practical, human and grounded in colleague reality, avoiding jargon or over engineered comms.
• Employer brand & colleague experience: Support the identification and development of proactive people stories, working closely with Corporate Communication to showcase colleagues, teams and initiatives across the business. This includes supporting the activation of the pladis employee value proposition (EVP) through engaging campaigns and storytelling that position pladis as a great place to work. Ensure all HR communications, materials and touchpoints are aligned with the pladis corporate brand and narrative, delivering a consistent employee experience across the full employee lifecycle, from onboarding through to offboarding. Strengthen the connection between our culture, values and everyday colleague experience through how we communicate. Imbed inclusion, fairness and integrity into people messaging, ensuring all communications are accessible and resonate across diverse colleague groups.
• Channel strategy & execution: Define and manage the internal people communications approach across channels (e.g. intranet, Viva Engage, email, digital screens, events, leader cascades). Ensure the right messages reach the right audiences, at the right time, through the most effective channels. Create toolkits, leader briefs and cascade materials to support consistent and confident delivery by leaders and HR teams. Partner with HRBPs and site teams to ensure messages land effectively and are delivered in a locally relevant way while protecting core narrative. Continuously improve communication hygiene, reducing fragmentation and duplication across teams and channels.
• Partnership with Corporate Communications: Work in close partnership with Corporate Communications to ensure alignment between internal and external messaging, particularly where people, culture or leadership narratives overlap. Coordinate timing, tone and positioning of communications to avoid conflict or noise for colleagues. Support leadership communications (including senior leadership and UK&I connect forums) with clear, credible and engaging people messages. Maintain strong working relationships across HR, Corporate Comms and key functional stakeholders.
• Strategic contribution & impact: Act as a trusted advisor to senior HR leaders on how and when to communicate people topics. Anticipate communication risks and proactively shape messaging to support confidence, understanding and engagement. Use data, feedback and insight to assess impact and continuously improve the effectiveness of internal communications. Establish standards, templates and guidance to raise overall capability and consistency of HR communications.

Key relationships include:

• UK&I HR Leadership Team and HR Centres of Excellence
• Corporate Communications (UK&I)
• HR Business Partners and site HR teams
• Senior leaders and functional leadership teams
• Global Communications HR Team
• Employee networks and engagement forums

Skills & Experience

Essential: Significant experience in internal communications, HR communications or people focused corporate communications. Demonstrable experience of owning and delivering complex internal narratives across large, diverse workforces. Strong storytelling and writing skills, with the ability to simplify complex content without losing meaning. Proven ability to influence without authority and work effectively across multiple stakeholders. Strong judgement, discretion and confidence when handling sensitive topics.

Desirable: Experience working in partnership with Corporate or External Communications teams. Exposure to change, transformation, restructuring or large scale engagement programmes. Experience in unionised, operational or multi site environments. Background in HR, People or organisational communications.

Personal attributes: Practical, grounded and outcomes focused. Calm and confident under pressure, with sound judgement. Values led, with a strong sense of integrity and fairness. Detail oriented, while able to see and shape the bigger picture. Collaborative, open and comfortable challenging to improve outcomes.

What success looks like:

• Colleagues understand what’s happening, why it matters and how it affects them.
• HR and people messages are consistent, clear and trusted across UK&I.
• Leaders feel confident and well equipped to cascade people messages.
• Internal people communications feel joined up, human and on brand.
• Strong alignment between internal and external narratives relating to people and culture.

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.