This is an excellent opportunity for someone to broaden their experience in human resources, manage an HR Assistant and work alongside other teams including the Governing Body, the Head, the Bursar, the Finance Team, the Communications Team as well as other leaders and staff within the School. The successful candidate will benefit from excellent facilities and resources combined with a competitive salary. The successful candidate will be subject to child protection screening, including a DBS check and barred list check.

Main Duties & Responsibilities

The main duties of the HR Manager include:

Employee Relations

• Lead on all Employee Relations cases working closely with the Head, Bursar, Deputy Heads and line managers; including but not limited to investigations, disciplinary, grievances, capability, redundancies, restructures and dismissals.
• Follow up on sickness absence triggers, including referrals to occupational health when required, advising and working closely with line managers and occupational health where applicable. Ensure compliance with UK Employment law and best practice in Human Resources.
• Manage and advise employees and managers on leave of absence, family leave and other leave requests in line with School policies and procedures.

Employment Law, Regulatory Compliance, Contracts And Policy

• Ensure the School’s compliance with all aspects of employment law applicable to Schools incorporated as a limited company, The Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014, the school’s status as a UKVI sponsor in relation to employees, other regulations, DfE requirements, insurance requirements and best practice.
• Manage the school’s Single Central Register, including conducting at least termly audits with the Bursar to ensure that it is up to date and accurate so that we are ever ready for any inspection.
• Comply with all aspects of safer recruitment and Keeping Children Safe in Education.
• Organise safer recruitment training for the School on a cyclical basis.
• Lead annual reviews and updates of the School’s suite of employment contracts and HR policies.
• Keep up to date with future employment regulation and law applicable to the School, and prepare for changes in ways that mitigate risk.
• Update policies and procedures in line with employment law changes, submitting proposed changes to the Governing Body via the Bursar.
• Liaise with the School’s legal advisors on staff related issues together with the Governing Body.

Manage The Employee Lifecycle From Attraction To Exit

• Manage recruitment, including the production of adverts, job descriptions, person specifications, shortlisting processes, interview schedules and safer recruitment processes.
• Keep up to date with labour market trends and how this affects the School’s ability to recruit, including the use of AI (for example, in assisting drafting).
• Utilise recruitment campaigns and sourcing channels as required for roles advertised and work with the Communications Team to make these go live.
• Design fair and inclusive assessment approaches which identify the right candidates for the roles.
• Use campaign, recruitment and onboarding data and feedback to drive better people experiences and more effective recruitment approaches.
• Manage onboarding and offboarding processes, reviewing and re-designing the processes where necessary and updating the School’s induction policy accordingly.
• Ensure that all staff receive appropriate advice and support on conditions of service, policies and procedures, ensuring they are effectively and consistently inducted and communicated with throughout their service at the School and kept abreast of changes to school policies.
• Facilitate exit interviews with all departing staff members, analyse staff turnover and exit interview data to report on potential issues and trends to the Head, Bursar and Governing Body.

Workforce Planning, Absence Management And Cover

• Assist with workforce planning across the School by assessing immediate and future capability needs and assist design career pathways to achieve future capability.
• Report on and manage staff attendance, monitor all absences and analyse absence trends.
• Arrange cover where necessary.
• Conduct return to work interviews.
• Maintain relationships with agencies and third parties used by the School to arrange cover.
• Manage requests for flexible ways of working whilst balancing the School’s needs and parental expectations.

Performance Management

• Assist the Head and the Bursar with appraisal processes, and manage all records in relation to the same.
• Analyse performance management data to suggest improvements.
• Enable managers and leaders to support others to be their best at work.
• Coach, advise and build people management capability at various levels across the School.
• Assist in creating professional learning culture and environment that supports continuing professional development across the School and promotes career progression in line with the School’s future capability needs.

Maintain HR Records & Manage HR Projects

• Together with the HR Assistant, ensure that all personnel records are maintained in accordance with best practice and are able to meet the information needs, data protection and insurance requirements of the School. This includes all standard employment records, annual self-declarations, appraisal and training records.
• Keep job descriptions up to date across the School.
• Continuously review, improve and streamline HR processes.
• Manage and undertake HR Projects such as DBS renewals and registration to the Update Service, Digitisation of HR records, HRIS implementation.

Budgets And Reward Packages

• Manage the HR budget and ensure the most effective use of spend.
• Work with the Finance Office to manage changes in payroll and reward packages, pensions.
• Conduct and report on resource audits as required by the Head, the Bursar and the Governing Body.
• Use evidence-based practice to assist the Fees and Salaries Review Committee to conduct annual salary and benefits reviews.
• Translate HR issues into answerable questions, with recommended solutions.
• Use benchmarking data to provide insight about the external reward environment.
• Use relevant research to assist the committee to make informed decisions.
• Collectively develop and improve the quality of ideas and proposals that create a total reward offering which is risk assured.
• Update the committee on reward and recognition approaches which attract, motivate and retain staff, and support the School’s value proposition.

People Practice

• Assist with maintaining the culture and conditions in which the School’s staff can thrive and perform.
• Use a range of people practices in an integrated and systemic way for the School and its culture.
• Define outcomes for people practices and measure their impact and value.
• Further integrate wellbeing into the School’s people practices to enable a perpetually resilient workforce that operates in a healthy environment with a shared responsibility.
• Assist with equality, diversity and inclusion approaches that positively impact the School’s culture