Career opportunities: Senior Talent Business Partner in London

The role holder is responsible for providing exceptional HR support and client service to their designated client group, collaborating closely with leadership to cultivate a high-performance culture. Additionally, the role holder will partner with the Head of Talent Advisory & Operations and the Talent Director to deliver the firm’s strategy through complex, challenging, and impactful projects. The role holder will also serve as an escalation point for generalist HR queries, particularly in employee relations matters. This position is based at the firm's London premises, with occasional travel to Liverpool.

Key responsibilities

• Business Partnering: Building strong client relationships with key individuals in areas of responsibility, providing commercial HR advice and strategic counsel to leadership throughout the firm, including at Board level. Working collaboratively with leaders to understand people requirements and identifying appropriate programmes and initiatives to drive our high-performance culture. Ensuring focus on employee engagement activities in conjunction with relevant senior leaders and identifying local and firm wide key areas for improvement. Working collaboratively across the Talent team to ensure that collectively we are delivering for the needs of the client group, including working closely with our Acquisition team on recruitment strategies and our Development team on training and development opportunities.
• Strategic Talent Activities and Projects: Lead the execution of annual people processes, including business planning, budgeting, promotions, performance reviews, and salary/bonus evaluations. Ensure robust talent management practices are in place that align with the firm's growth and inclusion strategy. Collaborate with the Head of Talent Advisory & Operations and the Talent Director on strategic firm-wide projects to advance the people agenda. Support the delivery of broader Talent projects delivery, including contributing to the firm’s Responsible Business agenda and aiding management development initiatives. Facilitate the integration of the firmwide Talent system across your client group while advocating for process and cultural changes.
• Employee Relations: Serve as an escalation point for formal disciplinary, capability, or grievance procedures when required, leveraging team expertise on complex issues to ensure commercial outcomes. Provide impartial guidance to line managers on Talent matters such as performance, absence management, and employee wellbeing. Conduct welfare conversations with employees as needed, ensuring confidentiality and maintaining morale and engagement. Play a key role in ensuring new joiners are well-integrated into the firm throughout their probation period. Oversee all elements of the onboarding process in collaboration with other Talent teams. Coordinate with Occupational Health Advisors by referring cases as necessary and implementing recommendations.
• Leadership: Act as a senior member of the Talent team, ensuring that best practices are shared across different areas of the team. Foster connections across teams within the firm to deliver excellence in all people-related projects and activities. Provide leadership and guidance to junior members of the Talent Advisory team.

Knowledge, skills and experience

Essential: Proven experience operating at a commercial and strategic HR level within a professional services environment. Strong motivation to deliver exceptional client service, both responsive to and anticipating internal client needs. Excellent communication skills, capable of engaging effectively with individuals at all levels within the firm, both verbally and in writing. Solid background in managing relevant employee relations cases. Experience with performance review and salary review cycles. Demonstrated success in HR project delivery. Resilience and ability to perform effectively under pressure. High organisational skills, with a proven ability to multitask and prioritise workload efficiently. Exceptional attention to detail. Professional manner – confident, approachable, and adaptable. Ability to work well within a team and contribute positively to its dynamics.

Desirable: Proficiency in working with a HR system. Experience in the legal sector or other professional services environments would be advantageous. Strong administrative skills, to include a good working knowledge of MS Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint.

Benefits: Here are a select few benefits that Taylor Wessing offer; Hybrid working (Offering the opportunity to work remotely, while maintaining a social boundary by working from our award-winning offices for 3 days a week). Holiday (Our basic annual holiday entitlement starts at 25 days, with a further discretionary day of paid leave in December. You may also purchase up to five extra days each year (pro rata). Enhanced Maternity and Paternity leave (After one-year service, you are entitled to up to 26 weeks leave full pay if you or your partner give birth or adopt a child). Along with these there are many more benefits we offer, with the addition of a comprehensive flexible benefits package available.

Our culture: Nurturing a diverse, inclusive culture allows all of our talent to flourish, sparks creativity and powers innovation. We continue to build a team that exemplifies inclusivity and reflects the firm's core values: creative, excellence, integrity, responsible, respect and team. We value and celebrate the differences in who we are, what we have experienced and how we think, so all candidates will be treated fairly regardless of age, caring responsibilities, disability, gender identity, marital status, neurodiversity, pregnancy, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation and socio-economic background.

The way we work: At Taylor Wessing, we never settle for average. We're creative thinkers, problem solvers and continuous learners who excel at what we do and believe our best work is still ahead of us. We are a firm that's large enough for you to achieve your ambitions, but connected enough to be a true community.

Taylor Wessing is a global law firm that serves the world's most innovative people and businesses. Deeply embedded within our sectors, we work closely together with our clients to crack complex problems, enabling ideas and aspirations to thrive. Together we challenge expectation and create extraordinary results. By shaping the conversation in our sectors, we enable our clients to unlock growth, protect innovation and accelerate ambition.