Organisation and Workforce Planning

• Support organisational design, workforce planning and role clarity.
• Partner leaders on people costs, headcount management and organisation effectiveness. Close interaction with finance teams.
• Lead and support change programmes, ensuring change is implemented fairly and effectively with impactful business outcomes.
• Simplify ways of working and improve organisational effectiveness.

Talent, Capability and Leadership

• Lead talent and succession planning for critical R&D roles.
• Build plans for scarce and specialist technical capabilities.
• Coach leaders to develop high-performing and inclusive teams.
• Support performance, development and reward decisions.
• Partner Talent and Learning teams to build future capabilities.

Culture and Employee Experience

• Support a culture of inclusion, accountability and continuous improvement working in partnership with leadership teams.
• Use employee feedback to identify and address organisation health priorities.
• Ensure globally defined people practices are implemented consistently and effectively across R&D teams.

Port Sunlight Site and Employee Relations Responsibilities

HR Site Leadership

• Partner the Site Leader, Site Director to deliver the site people agenda.
• Provide HR leadership and visibility across the site including the operational management the shared facilities on site.
• Build strong relationships across Business Groups and functions operating at Port Sunlight R&D.
• Support site-wide initiatives that improve employee experience, engagement and organisational effectiveness.
• Support employee resource groups eg. Inclusion and Mental Health.

Employee Relations and Unite Partnership

• Lead employee relations activity across the site ensuring that clear and timely communications are made to employees.
• Build constructive working relationships with employee representatives. The site has a collective agreement at WL1 which covers 550 WL1 employees represented by Unite.
• Lead and /or support consultation and negotiation activity where required (including annual pay negotiations for WL1).
• Provide expert advice on complex employee relations matters. Work closely where necessary with UK Geography and UK Employee Excellence team.
• Work in partnership with the People Experience teams to ensure people issues are managed fairly, consistently and in line with policy and employment law.
• Identify trends and risks and work proactively with leaders to resolve them.
• Line management of full-time Trade Union representative.

Stakeholder Management and Governance

• Build effective relationships with senior leaders, functional teams and employee representatives.
• Coordinate and align stakeholders around shared site priorities.
• Ensure robust governance, consultation and record keeping for employee relations matters.
• Communicate clearly and credibly on sensitive issues.

Key Interfaces

• BW R&D
  • HR Lead R&D (Line Manager) & broader BG HR team of BW.
  • VP Hair R&D & VP Skincare and Prestige VP & their leadership teams
• Port Sunlight
  • Port Sunlight Site Lead
  • Unilever HR Leads for R&D (PC, BW & HC) & broader HRBP community with employees on site
• Employee Representatives & Unite officials
• UKI Employee Experience Director & UKI HR HoC.

What You Will Bring

• Strong HRBP experience in large, global, matrixed organisations.
• Exceptional influencing skills and stakeholder partnership across senior global teams.
• Ability to navigate complexity, ambiguity, and multicultural environments with resilience and agility.
• A passion for capability building, future-ready talent, and human-centred design.

What We Offer

Not only do we offer a competitive salary and pension scheme, we also offer an annual bonus, subsidised gym membership, a discounted staff shop and shares. You’ll have the opportunity to work directly with our renowned and exciting brands in a flexible and hybrid working environment.

Whilst the role is advertised on a full-time basis, we would be happy to discuss possible flexible working options and what this may look like for you. We are a key advocate of wellbeing and offer a variety of support for our people including hubs, programmes and development opportunities. We strive to achieve a family-friendly and inclusive workplace and to, above all, create possibilities for all.

Diversity at Unilever

Diversity at Unilever is about inclusion, embracing differences, creating possibilities and growing together for better business performance. We embrace diversity in our workforce. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. We are also more than happy to provide reasonable adjustments during our application and interview process to enable you to be present your best self. To find out more, including about our Employee Resource Groups, please click here Equity, Diversity & Inclusion at Unilever | Unilever.

Recruitment Fraud

Cyber criminals advertise fake job adverts with prestigious employers as a way of stealing information or even defrauding individuals out of money. In the most sophisticated cases, they will set up fake websites, which have a similar address to companies like Unilever. They even conduct fake telephone interviews and then offer candidates a role with the proviso they pay a fee for background checks or to cover work visa costs. These types of attacks are becoming more common as more people are looking for employment in the economic climate.

How is Unilever tackling this?

Many of Unilever’s recruitment sites publish a warning to candidates about recruitment fraud. The Cyber Security team also proactively scan for signs of people setting up fake Unilever sites and act to close them down.

What can I do?

If you become aware of potential recruitment fraud, spot fake Unilever recruitment adverts or fake LinkedIn profiles, report them via Una Live Chat.

Unilever does not accept responsibility or liability for any candidates who are financially impacted by recruitment fraud. Your vigilance is key!