People & Talent Manager

Work.Life is a flex workspace provider for businesses who care about people.

We believe that happy teams deliver measurable benefits for businesses. That’s why everything we do, from workspace design to delivering a best-in-class personal service, is designed to create happy working environments. We have shared workspaces across London, Reading and Manchester; with 7,000+ members; and an amazing team of nearly 70 work.lifers who share our ambition to redefine the workspace experience for the better.

Salary: £40,000

Bonus: Annual bonus increasing with tenure

Level: Mid-level role

Location: Central London-based: our support team office is at St Cross Street, Farringdon & you\’ll regularly visit our London spaces with occasional travel to Reading & Manchester.

Time Commitment: This is a Hybrid role with a minimum of 3 days a week in the office. Working day starts at 8:30 am across all our locations, but we do operate a Flexible Working Policy.

Your Role

At Work.Life , we believe that happy teams create happy work-lives and as our People & Talent Manager, you’ll be at the heart of making that happen.

Your mission is to work closely with the Head of People & Culture to cultivate a supportive, collaborative, and high-performing environment where every team member can thrive and feel valued. You’ll do this by being the driving force behind our daily people lifecycle; helping to ensure that Work.Life attracts, hires, develops and retains exceptional talent that fuels our growth, and strengthens our culture.

This role will land brilliantly with a curious generalist, someone who has been in a sole People Manager role in startup & scaleup environments and come out having built their strengths and expertise handing multiple People projects and prioritising in line with company needs. This is a hands-on generalist role, perfect for someone who thrives on rolling up their sleeves, delivering impactful people projects, and balancing day-to-day people ops with talent strategy. We’re looking for someone who’s confident using tools and technology to make processes smoother, whether that’s leveraging AI, automating manual tasks, or streamlining workflows.

As far as progression opportunities go, this role is at the heart of all things People and so has multiple avenues for its progression and specialisation, as appropriate and desired by the new hire. You will work closely with the Head of People & Culture to craft your very own pathway into the world in People in a way that will excite YOU.

Your Responsibilities

Talent Acquisition & Hiring

·Own recruitment and role planning, working closely with managers and department leads to keep Work.Life staffed with exceptional talent.

·Lead on a smooth and efficient hiring process and a memorable candidate experience.

·Support on progressive recruitment practices, embedding automation where necessary in order to create a more scalable backend process.

·Collaborate with the Marketing Team to help promote a compelling employer brand that attracts top talent.

·Drive creative initiatives to position Work.Life as a best-in-class employer, ensuring we always have a pipeline of talented candidates who align with our culture.

Onboarding & Offboarding

·Own and continuously refine the onboarding experience, ensuring every new team member feels welcome, supported, and set up for success.

·Own the Ramp Up and Probation journeys for all new hires and report on our success getting people settled and delivering in their new roles.

·Co-ordinate in-person onboarding and training in our spaces, working with the Head of Operations to ensure membership teams are always equipped to train and develop new joiners.

·Run a thoughtful, well-managed offboarding process, ensuring leavers have a positive exit experience while gathering insights to continuously improve Work.Life as an employer.

People Partnership & Culture

·Act as a trusted partner to our Managers, ensuring every team is happy, supported, and thriving through consistent and meaningful manager coaching.

·Champion L&D access & career progression tools to support our managers in developing our people from within.

·Be a trusted People advisor to managers, providing support on employee relations, conflict resolution, and performance management.

·Provide proactive guidance on resourcing, performance, and engagement, enabling teams and improving their productivity.

·Support the Leadership Team with insights and recommendations by producing reports on your areas of work, ensuring engagement, talent development, and happiness remain a top priority.

·Ensure Work.Life is a place where people feel heard, respected, and supported.

Payroll & People Processes

·Take ownership of payroll (monthly and annual), working closely with Finance to ensure accuracy and efficiency.

·Continually seek ways to enhance and simplify payroll processes, ensuring seamless execution every month.

·Lead on benefits & perks management, ensuring team members fully utilise what we offer while managing supplier relationships and invoices.

·Manage and keep up-to-date HR policies, that the business remains compliant with employment legislation and GDPR regulations.

·Manage and keep up to date the Knowledge Hub, that stores People processes and education for employees on all things work.

Employee Recognition & Happiness

·Manage the employee recognition budget, ensuring initiatives are impactful, meaningful, and aligned with our culture.

·Foster a culture of appreciation and motivation, bringing creative ideas to life to recognise and reward great work.

·Champion team wellbeing, collaborating with the wider team on driving initiatives that support our people’s happiness, health, and engagement.

Your Experience

·You have at least 5 years of experience working in a People function as a Recruitment Coordinator, People Executive or People Manager (Generalist).

·Experience working in fast-paced Startups is a must.

·You have experienced having ownership in your role, taking full responsibility for actions and outcomes, anticipating obstacles, and seeking opportunities to progress.

·You can prioritise, manage your time and utilise tools or help of other colleagues to maximise impact, setting your own priorities, and following through.

·Experienced in improving systems and processes to enhance efficiency and performance, particularly with the use of AI or other means to automate manual tasks.

·Strong understanding of the UK Employment Law in order to be able to thoroughly process any HR matters.

·Data-driven mindset, using HR analytics and metrics to create data informed plans in support of company KPIs

Our Values

Own It

We\’re a small team, with ambitious goals, and our success depends on each of us stepping up to the challenge.

It’s personal

Human connection is at the heart of what we do and why we do it. Everybody comes with their own story.

Don’t stop at good

Our goal is to be better than we were yesterday, knowing that\’s not as great as we\’ll be tomorrow.

Team 1st

We win by being greater than the sum of our parts. No egos here.

Our Values inform the type of people we bring on board, the decisions we make and the way we run the business. We will be looking to confirm that these values resonate with you at each stage of the recruitment process.

Application Process

1.Phone screen with the Head of People & Culture (Olya)

2.Deep dive into your experience (In person) – Olya & one other from the Leadership Team

3.Technical Interview (In person) – Olya & COO (Paul)

4.References – completed by Olya (We ask for 2 managers from previous roles to have a short phone call)

At Work.Life, we’re committed to providing an inclusive environment for our team and our members, as we believe that diversity breeds a more innovative, creative, and caring culture.

We’re an equal opportunity employer. Everyone who applies to Work.Life will be considered for employment without attention to race, age, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, family or parental status, or disability status.

Ready to join the Work.Life way? We’re excited to hear from you.

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