People Partner in London

Department: Business

Responsible to: People & Culture Director

Contract: Permanent – to start handover ideally by mid-August

Location: The Old Vic, 103 The Cut, London, SE1 8NB (some home-working)

Hours: Full-Time - 40 hours per week, 10am-6pm, Monday-Friday

Salary: £46,000 per annum

Direct reports: None

Role Summary

The People Partner is responsible for running projects alongside overseeing the day-to-day delivery of practical guidance, advice and support to all departments at a senior level. The People Partner will lead operational HR generalism on organisation wide People projects and advice aligned with the strategic People Plan. They are responsible for ensuring The Old Vic’s policies, processes and practices are up to date and compliant and will continuously seek to improve our inclusive working practices.

Your Team

The People team consists of the People & Culture Director and People Coordinator, and sits within the wider Business team, led by the COO/Deputy CEO.

Areas of Responsibility

• Recruitment and Staffing
  • Overarching management of our Hiring processes (internal and external - for casuals, permanent staff and freelance staff) to ensure it is inclusive and in line with our Recruitment Guidebook, fit for purpose and a positive candidate experience.
  • Supporting managers to consider reviews of structures prior to recruitment.
  • Working with the People Coordinator in auditing job descriptions and adverts to ensure inclusive language.
  • Overseeing the People Coordinator and Hiring managers to ensure a smooth process for approving vacancies, advertising roles, shortlisting of candidates and coordinating interviews.
  • Reviewing our job boards to ensure we’re reaching a wide and relevant talent pool.
  • Working with line managers to continuously improve our welcome and oversee onboarding of all new starters (HR induction, OV Welcome Days).
  • Assist with any escalated complex queries or feedback received to our Jobs Inbox.
  • Working with external agencies and partners on roles as needed from time to time and maintaining our Preferred Supplier List.
  • Producing recruitment and ED&I metrics and analysis as requested, as well as tracking success and cost effectiveness of recruitment advertising campaigns and how to improve them going forward.
• On-boarding and Off-boarding
  • Reviewing and approving new joiner paperwork (including a variety of employment contracts) drafted by the People Coordinator.
  • Analysing feedback and suggesting action plans from exit interviews with leavers, onboarding surveys and Old Vic quarterly Welcome induction day feedback.
  • Checking in as a friendly face for all our new joiners.
  • Providing advice to line managers during probation periods and coaching managers on the process in the event of poor performance extensions or failures.
  • Seeking to continuously improve experience during onboarding and offboarding.
• Employee Relations
  • Be the first point of contact for all line managers to provide impactful advice and solutions in line with all Old Vic policies, guidance and processes.
  • Work with the People & Culture Director to manage all Employee Relations cases, appeals, change processes and restructures, escalating any complex or risky cases or queries to the People & Culture Director promptly.
  • Managing flexible working request processes, absence and leave management.
  • Ensure any advice provided aims to promote staff rights and reduce any risk of litigation, seeking external employment law advice where necessary.
  • Work with line managers to ensure thorough and fair process for all formal proceedings, ensuring all documents are reviewed.
• Policies and Procedures
  • Regularly review and update People and Inclusion policies, reminding managers when reviews are required and providing summaries of key changes where required.
  • Anticipating, researching and drafting new policies and processes as required.
  • Suggesting amendments and updates to ensure policies are reflective of current legislation.
  • Communicating policies and ensuring these are easily available and accessible to staff, freelancers and casuals as needed.
  • Attending H&S committee meetings and making any recommendations relating to People compliance.
• HR Data & Systems
  • Maintain accuracy of HR data on our systems and databases (currently Staff Savvy and Cascade), and filing of information on the People SharePoint and Intranet.
  • Preparing workforce data reports as required.
  • Be the point of contact for account management of Staff Savvy and resolving functionality and/or technical issues.
  • Manage retention of all HR data in line with GDPR regulations and Internal Data policies.
• Remuneration, Payroll and Benefits
  • Reviewing monthly pay-related changes and liaising with Payroll team ahead of cut off.
  • Support People & Culture Director with benchmarking processes (QCG) and any associated actions.
  • Lead on role specific benchmarking ahead of recruitment.
  • Support People & Culture Director on annual Salary Review cycles, trade union and LLW increases.
  • Inputting into the annual HR budgeting process as required.
• Talent Development
  • Facilitating the roll out of annual Career Development Conversations, preparing a clear action plan.
  • Work with the People & Culture Director to deliver the L&D strategy as per the People Plan following a Training Needs Analysis (TNA).
  • Implementing ways to efficiently track all learning activity.
  • In line with the Old Vic Training Calendar, provide analysis received from feedback surveys to training leads and suggest any improvements required.
  • Analysing training feedback surveys and providing summary with actions and suggestions for improvement.
• Inclusion
  • Applying inclusive practices to all our People processes, championing inclusion from within.
  • Working with our Inclusion & Access Lead to support communication of the Awareness Calendar.
  • Ensuring due consideration is given to protected characteristics when managing any ER cases or change programmes with an EDI impact statement.
  • Take an active role in enhancing our inclusion agendas and BISP actions.
• Wellbeing & Engagement
  • Co-Lead the Mental Health Champions group with the People & Culture Director to ensure they are proactive in supporting a positive mental health culture at work.
  • Lead on Have Your Say annual engagement survey and coordinate collation of feedback, evaluation and action plan.
  • Support on the initiation, planning and roll out of wellbeing and engagement initiatives in line with the People Plan.
  • Support the Business Team on the administration and tracking of the Guardians Scheme.
  • Working with the People & Culture Director to ensure that the Intranet is utilised as per the internal comms mapping and strategy, continuously driving improvement.

This is not an exhaustive list of duties and the Theatre's management may, at any time, allocate other tasks which are of a similar nature or level.

Person Specification

Essential

• Experience in HR generalist and a breadth of employee lifecycle activities and best practice/holding a Level 5 CIPD qualification.
• Excellent communication skills in person, in presentation/training environments, over the phone and video calls, by email, and in other written forms.
• Numerically literate and able to work practically and with consideration in payroll.
• Experienced in confidently applying employment law and HR/ACAS best practice in practical employee relations cases, with the ability to identify and mitigate risk as well as put the People experience first.
• Ability to draft a wide range of People activity documents including policies, procedures, forms, templates and guidance documents.
• Experience working in collaboration with or alongside requirements for H&S, EDI, wellbeing and learning providers.
• Ability to account manage and learn different platforms, databases and software (i.e. applicant tracking systems, HR/payroll databases, etc).
• Ability to collect, present and analyse People data and draft internal reports and learnings from surveys, databases, research, benchmarking, etc.
• An interest in or experience in theatre and/or the arts world and the wide range of people who work to make it happen.

How To Apply

We understand that everyone is different and we want you to apply in whichever way you feel best shows your skills and experience. There are a range of ways that you can apply with us:

• Sending a short video file of yourself (no longer than two minutes in length), detailing your experience, why you are applying for the role and what about working at The Old Vic interests you.
• Sending a short audio file of yourself (no longer than two minutes in length), detailing your experience, why you are applying for the role and what about working at The Old Vic interests you.
• Completing our application form.
• Uploading your CV and covering letter, explaining why you are interested in the role and working at the Old Vic.

The Old Vic has made a commitment that all applicants with disabilities who meet the essential criteria for this job will be invited to interview.

All appointments are made subject to satisfactory references and proof of eligibility to work in the UK.

The Process

The recruitment process for this role will be two stages:

• 1st stage in person conversation
• 2nd stage in person conversation
• You will be asked to complete a work based skills assessment.

The closing date for this role is 27 July 2026. First conversations are likely to take place w/c 3 August 2026. We reserve the right to close this advert early if we receive a high number of applications before the closing date. Any applicants who feel this may be a barrier to them submitting an application due to learning or access needs are encouraged to email for support. This may also bring up the interview dates which are currently proposed and not confirmed.

Equal Opportunities

We actively support and encourage people from a variety of backgrounds, experiences and skill sets to join us and help shape what we do. We are particularly keen to receive applications from people of the global majority, LGBTQ+, neurodiverse and disabled candidates.

We may take positive action, in cases where candidates are equally qualified, to increase the employment of under-represented groups at The Old Vic.

In the event that we ask you to attend the theatre for a conversation and you are struggling financially, we may be able to reimburse you for any reasonable travel costs.

We partner with a range of inclusive organisations, to find out more please read our FAQs.

FAQs

Read our recruitment and selection and equal opportunities FAQs here.