Wrightbus
Head of People Operations
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Job Summary
Wrightbus is seeking a Head of People Operations to lead the Talent Acquisition, Employee Relations & Case Management, Compensation & Benefits, and HR Shared Service Centre functions.
The Head of People Operations will be responsible for designing, building, and leading a high-performing global People Operations function that delivers recruitment, employee relations case management, reward and benefits, and HR shared services to a consistently high and measurable standard. The role will focus on creating an exceptional experience for employees and managers, establishing robust people processes and data foundations across the HR function, and enabling HR Business Partners to operate more strategically by providing efficient, reliable operational support.
This role will play a critical part in driving operational excellence, continuous improvement, compliance, and service delivery across all people-related activities, supporting Wrightbus's growth and long-term people strategy.
The Role
Designing and Building the Function
- Design and implement the People Operations operating model, including services, structure, processes, technology, SLAs and governance, initially in the UK and then globally.
- Build and lead the team, establishing roles, standards, culture and ways of working.
- Transition recruitment, case management and operational HR activity from the HR generalist team with minimal disruption.
- Define clear service boundaries, escalation routes and hand-offs across HR.
- Establish a tiered service model covering self-service, shared services, specialist support and escalation.
Talent Acquisition
- Own end-to-end global recruitment across manufacturing, engineering, technical, professional and senior roles.
- Deliver hiring plans aligned to workforce and manufacturing demand.
- Manage agency and RPO partnerships, performance and spend.
- Establish consistent, fair and compliant recruitment processes and candidate experience.
- Oversee recruitment compliance, including right to work, immigration and data protection.
- Partner with the Head of Talent to ensure consistent standards across early careers and apprenticeships.
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Employee Relations and Case Management
- Build and lead a centralised ER case management function covering investigations, disciplinary, grievance, absence, capability and appeals.
- Ensure cases are managed fairly, consistently and efficiently, including the use of mediation where appropriate.
- Provide expert ER guidance while building manager capability.
- Own and maintain HR policies, ensuring consistency and legal compliance.
- Manage employment law advisors and support tribunal and litigation matters.
- Analyse ER data to identify trends and drive preventative action.
Compensation and Benefits
- Own the reward framework, including job architecture, salary structures, benchmarking, pay reviews and bonus cycles.
- Ensure reward practices are competitive, equitable, affordable and appropriately governed.
- Manage benefits strategy, providers and employee engagement.
- Ensure compliance with pay-related legislation and reporting requirements.
- Support reward, mobility and relocation frameworks as the business expands internationally.
Shared Service Centre and HR Operations
- Establish and lead the HR Shared Service Centre as the primary point of contact for employee and manager queries.
- Own employee lifecycle administration from onboarding to offboarding.
- Manage the payroll interface, ensuring accurate and timely data submission.
- Lead HR systems, data integrity, self-service adoption and continuous improvement in partnership with IT.
- Drive automation and process efficiency across HR operations.
- Ensure compliance with data protection, records management and privacy requirements.
- Support the production of statutory and mandatory HR reporting alongside the Data Analyst.
Global Delivery
- Develop a scalable global service model balancing consistency with local market requirements.
- Manage the phased international rollout of People Operations services.
- Establish governance, compliance and risk management across multiple markets.
- Support Group-wide alignment where shared services create value.
Leadership and Service Performance
- Lead and develop a multidisciplinary People Operations team through specialist functional leads.
- Define, monitor and report key service metrics, including recruitment, ER, payroll, service delivery, compliance and customer satisfaction.
- Use performance data to drive continuous improvement and demonstrate value to the Executive team.
- Act as a senior member of the HR Leadership Team, shaping HR strategy and priorities alongside the HR Director.
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The Requirements
Experience
- Significant senior experience leading HR operations, shared services, or a comparable centralised people service, including accountability for service levels and customer experience.
- Demonstrable experience of building or substantially transforming an HR operations or shared services function — not solely running an established one.
- Breadth across the People Operations disciplines, with genuine depth in at least two of: talent acquisition, employee relations and case management, reward, HR shared services and systems.
- Experience of leading high-volume recruitment in an operational or manufacturing environment, working to production-driven demand.
- Strong employee relations grounding, including oversight of complex casework and the policy framework behind it.
- Experience of HR systems and process improvement, including driving self-service adoption and automation.
- Strong UK employment law knowledge, and the judgement to manage risk in a fast-moving business.
Skills and Approach
- A genuine service mindset — treats managers and employees as customers and cares about the experience they receive.
- Process and data discipline: designs it properly, measures it honestly and improves it continuously.
- Commercially astute, with strong supplier and budget management and a track record of taking cost out without degrading service.
- Calm and credible under pressure, with the resilience to build a function while it is already carrying live demand.
- Pragmatic about sequencing — knows what must be right at go-live and what can be improved in version two.
- Strong influencing skills; able to hold service boundaries firmly with senior stakeholders without damaging the relationship.
- Willing and able to travel across UK sites and internationally.
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