Employee Relations Specialist - 10 month FTC Maternity Cover in Yeovil

At Yeo Valley, we are about more than just making great food – we are here to nurture and nourish people and planet by making great food the right way. As a co-owned business, we invest in our people, encourage growth, and believe in doing things properly.

As ER Specialist you will provide technical expertise to our site-based people managers at three of our production sites: Crewkerne, Newton Abbot and Isleport. You will interpret and apply Yeo Valley’s People Policies, providing sound advice and where required support or lead on more complex employee relations matters.

You will also support in ensuring that Yeo Valley’s ‘people policies’ are not only well maintained, but critically, align with Yeo Valley’s purpose to ‘nurture and nourish people and planet’ within our culture of co-ownership.

• Act as a point of contact and escalation for People Services Assistants, People Managers and People Partners, regarding the interpretation and application of People Policies.
• Work closely with our people managers to provide procedural advice and guidance, enabling them to resolve people challenges and employee relations cases whilst ensuring our co-owners are treated fairly, consistently and with our values in mind.
• Attend formal meetings to note take, provide HR advice/guidance and ensure that case files are appropriately maintained with required systems.
• Have oversight of attendance management, ensuring compliance with the policy, escalating concerns where appropriate.
• Support and coach people managers in line with Yeo Valley’s Supporting your Performance at Work Policy, ensuring robust management of performance improvement processes.
• Ensure that People Policies are both maintained, reflecting the most up to date legislative requirements, but also review availability and content ongoing to ensure that policies provide an appropriate framework.
• Work with both People Services & People Partners to review case logs and individual case management information, ensuring fairness and consistency in application.
• Act as a data expert, working with both People Services, IT and stakeholders, to build a deep understanding of people data, analytics and metrics required by key stakeholders and create bespoke reports and dashboards.
• Where appropriate, lead workshops/training with People Managers to upskill and provide information on new toolkits/procedures.

• A fantastic team player
• Proactive in approach, identifying opportunities for improvement
• Demonstrable and relevant experience working in a similar ER Specialist/HR Advisor role
• Has an in-depth and up to date working knowledge of UK employment law
• Is analytical with an exceptional degree of accuracy and proven attention to detail when working with data
• Is great at producing reports and confidence in working with data, figures, systems, and spreadsheets
• Has a strong technical knowledge of HRIS systems. Advanced level of MS Office, particularly Excel, Word, and PowerPoint

• Employee Relations knowledge
• Experience of providing best practice advice, using internal policies

• CIPD – level 5
• Policy creation
• FMCG/Manufacturing background

We’re independent, British and proud to be making the highest quality yogurts, desserts and ice cream under the Yeo Valley brand and for many of the UK’s major retailers. Operating from four dairies and two logistics centres in Somerset and Devon, we employ over 1700 staff and produce more than 25% of the UK’s packaged yogurt.

We offer a whole host of benefits including free parking, top of the range personal protection equipment (PPE) and your own locker. You will also receive:

• Competitive holiday allowance
• Non-contributory pension scheme
• Life cover
• Healthcare cash back plan
• Cycle to work scheme
• Subsidised Yeo Valley products and services
• Preferential rates with our partners
• Learning and development opportunities; we’re committed to ensuring all of our employees have the chance to grow

Our closing dates are a guide for when the application window should close, although we may close the advert sooner if we can. So, we recommend you get your application in straight away – and don’t miss the opportunity to join us!

Unfortunately, we’re not able to provide employment sponsorship to candidates at this moment in time. Please note that Yeo Valley do not accept speculative agency applications; we will only accept applications from preferred suppliers that have been submitted to us via our recruitment portal at the point of instruction.