Senior People Manager (Maternity Cover)

As our Senior People Manager, you will play a critical role in maintaining and evolving Leaf Living’s people function during continued growth, on a maternity cover, fixed-term 12-month basis. This position is key to ensuring continuity and consistency across the People and Culture function, maintaining and updating the strong frameworks, processes, and initiatives already in place to ensure they’re in line with employment law changes. The successful candidate will focus on maintaining high standards across employee relations, HR, payroll and benefits administration, performance management, and recruitment, while continuing to support a positive, compliant, and high-performing culture. The role requires a confident and experienced HR professional who can quickly embed themselves in the business, build strong relationships with stakeholders, and provide pragmatic, commercially focused people support. They will bring commitment, energy, sound judgement, and a collaborative, flexible approach. Reporting directly to the CEO, this role will provide both strategic oversight and hands-on delivery across all core HR activities. The role is based in Leaf Living’s Reading office with ad-hoc travel to the London office, as business requires.

Responsibilities

• Employee Relations & Employment Law: Act as the senior point of contact for escalated employee relations matters, including disciplinaries, grievances, absence management, performance concerns, and conflict resolution. Advise senior leaders and managers on UK employment law changes, HR best practice, and company policies, ensuring fair, consistent, and legally compliant outcomes. Lead or support complex and sensitive employment matters, including attendance at and support during critical meetings. Ensure effective risk management in conduct-related matters, providing clear and pragmatic advice to the business.
• HR Operations, Benefits & Payroll: Oversee the administration of employee benefits, ensuring accurate enrolment, ongoing management, and clear employee communication. Provide oversight of payroll administration, working closely with internal stakeholders and external providers to ensure accuracy, timeliness, and compliance. Ensure all employee data is accurate, well-maintained, and handled in line with GDPR and confidentiality requirements.
• Recruitment & Onboarding: Lead the full recruitment lifecycle, from workforce planning and role scoping through to interviewing, offer management, and onboarding. Oversee the new starter process ensuring all steps are delegated and fully managed. Develop and continuously improve onboarding and induction processes to support strong early employee engagement.
• HR Admin, Data & Reporting: Oversee and ensure the effective delivery of all HR administration processes, including contracts, changes, leavers, and employee records, maintaining accuracy, compliance, and a seamless employee experience. Track, analyse, and report on key HR metrics (including employee relations, recruitment, retention, absence, and performance), providing insight and recommendations to senior leadership.
• Leadership, Culture & Office Management: Provide direct line management, coaching, and operational oversight for the People Administrator and Culture Manager, supporting their development and ensuring effective delivery of day-to-day people initiatives. Work closely with the team to support employee engagement, wellbeing, and culture-building initiatives. Oversee the office management function to ensure a well-run, safe, and effective working environment. Act as a trusted advisor across the business, contributing to a positive, compliant, and people-focused culture.

This list is not exhaustive and may vary over time as required.

Skills and Competencies

• Proven experience as a HR or Senior HR Manager or in a similar HR leadership role within the UK.
• Strong working knowledge of UK employment law, HR best practice, and compliance requirements.
• Experience across employee relations, benefits administration, payroll oversight, and performance management.
• A strong track record of leading end-to-end recruitment and onboarding.
• Strategic thinking and problem-solving skills, with the ability to balance commercial and people priorities.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with confidence influencing at senior level.
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to work autonomously and prioritise effectively.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office applications.
• Absolute discretion and a strict commitment to confidentiality when handling sensitive information and data.