Rowen & Wren
Head Of People & Culture
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Rowen & Wren
For those who seek simple pleasures in the everyday and who appreciate the mighty that stems from the minutest of detail. Rowen & Wren is a quiet, considered homeware brand with seasonal collections spanning oak furniture to small, special accessories, warm, welcoming and carefully composed.
Role Summary
We're seeking an experienced, hands-on Head of People & Culture to own the people strategy and employee experience across our growing group of companies 3-4 days a week. There is also the potential for the role to be full time as the company continues to grow. This senior individual contributor role combines broad HR expertise with genuine ownership of culture: protecting what makes Rowen & Wren special while introducing practical structure and consistency to recruitment, performance, reward, development and retention.
You will be strategic and advisory, comfortable challenging senior leaders, and equally happy doing operational HR delivery. The objective is simple: make Rowen & Wren a place where great people want to join, perform, develop and stay.
Both part-time and full time applicants will be considered.
Key Responsibilities
Culture & employee experience
- Own and evolve the Group culture, embedding values across the employee lifecycle.
- Maintain a visible, approachable presence and a genuine pulse on morale and engagement.
- Design practical initiatives to improve collaboration, belonging and retention.
- Lead internal communications, recognition, and cross-company connection activities.
Performance, KPIs & reviews
- Design and implement a clear performance framework, consistent review cycles and KPI-setting guidance.
- Own probationary and performance improvement processes, succession and talent planning.
- Support managers to set meaningful, measurable expectations and run effective development conversations.
Reward, bonus & commission
- Review and benchmark salary structures; design and improve bonus and commission schemes.
- Ensure reward aligns with commercial outcomes and is consistent, transparent and motivating.
Recruitment & workforce planning
- Oversee recruitment for the Group, improve job descriptions and interview processes, and support hiring decisions.
- Partner with managers to define hiring needs and manage recruitment partners where required.
- Ensure a high-quality candidate experience that reflects the Rowen & Wren brand.
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Onboarding & offboarding
- Create an effective onboarding experience so new starters quickly understand the business, their role and cultural expectations.
- Own thoughtful offboarding, exit interviews and analysis to spot retention trends.
Learning, development & manager capability
- Build a pragmatic L&D approach focused on manager development and practical capability uplift.
- Deliver internal workshops, development plans and measure training impact.
Employee engagement, events & social
- Own the Group’s social and experiential programme (company events, trips, workshops) to strengthen relationships and culture.
- Ensure events support cohesion across companies while remaining purposeful and inclusive.
Wellbeing, inclusion & belonging
- Promote employee wellbeing and practical DE&I measures; ensure policies and practices are inclusive.
- Support managers to handle individual needs and create a fair environment where people feel they belong.
HR leadership, policies & employee relations
- Provide professional HR leadership: contracts, policies, employee relations, disciplinary/grievance, absence management and employment law compliance.
- Advise senior leaders on complex people decisions and organisational change; coordinate external legal/HR support when needed.
People data & insight
- Introduce and monitor practical people metrics (turnover, engagement, absence, time-to-hire, review completion, reasons for leaving) to inform leadership decisions without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
Business management activities
- Support cross-functional business management needs, including organisational design, operations alignment, finance interfaces and ensuring clear data flow between HR and other systems.
- Provide strategic advisory and PMO-style oversight for people-related projects (budget tracking, project and resource planning).
Experience & Skills Required
- Senior HR professional with proven experience at Head of People, Head of HR, Senior HR Business Partner, Senior Manager or equivalent level.
- Strong track record in organisational design, HR operations, employee relations, reward design and performance management.
- Experience with finance, data flow between systems, operations and PMO activities (budget tracking, project/resource planning) — able to bridge people and commercial functions.
- Experienced advisor to senior leadership; comfortable challenging founders and leadership with constructive, commercially-minded counsel.
- Excellent knowledge of UK employment law and HR best practice.
- Strong experience in recruitment, onboarding, L&D and manager development.
- Demonstrable experience designing and implementing people metrics and translating insight into action.
- Consultancy-style thinking: strategic, commercially focused, and able to translate strategy into hands-on delivery.
- CIPD qualification (Level 5/7) or equivalent professional experience preferred.
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Personal Attributes
- Commercial and pragmatic: brings structure without unnecessary bureaucracy.
- Human and emotionally intelligent: highly approachable, credible and warm.
- Proactive and organised: notices issues and acts; comfortable balancing multiple businesses and priorities.
- Creative and fun: values high performance alongside kindness, inclusivity and enjoyable workplace experiences.
- Hands-on operator who will personally deliver as well as lead the people agenda.
What Success Looks Like
- A culture that scales: the Group retains personality, energy and sense of fun while becoming more structured and professional.
- Consistent people practices: clearer, fairer approaches to performance, reward, development and hiring.
- Stronger managers: improved confidence and capability across line managers.
- Higher engagement and retention: good people stay and can see development opportunities.
- Better hiring: consistent recruitment of people who fit skills and culture.
- Clear, actionable people insight that informs leadership decisions.
- Reduced dependency on founder-led activity for day-to-day culture and communication.
Reporting & Collaboration
- Senior role operating across the Group and expected to act as a trusted adviser to the leadership team.
- Close working relationships with Heads of Finance/Operations, Brand, and business unit managers.
- Will shape subsequent People & Culture team structure (including L&D lead at senior operator/manager level to be determined).
Why Join Rowen & Wren
- An opportunity to own and shape People & Culture for a thoughtful, values-driven brand as it grows.
- A role that blends strategic influence with meaningful, hands-on delivery in a warm, people-focused environment.
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