Lead ER Specialist

Location: Hybrid – 1-2 days per week in our Bradford office with flexibility to attend as required.
Contract: Fixed Term Contract – 12 Months
37.5 hrs per week
Salary: £42,000 per annum

We're looking for an experienced Lead Employee Relations Specialist to play a key role in delivering a high-quality, legally compliant and coaching-led Employee Relations service across our organisation. Reporting to a People Services Delivery Partner you will be a senior member of the People Services Delivery team, providing expert guidance on complex people matters, employment law and organisational risk, helping managers navigate challenging situations with confidence and consistency.

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced ER professional who thrives in a fast-paced environment and enjoys building strong relationships across the business. Combining deep Employee Relations expertise with a coaching and customer-focused approach, you'll support positive colleague experiences, develop manager capability and contribute to the continuous improvement of our People Services Delivery function.

Alongside managing a varied portfolio of complex employee relations matters, you'll also play an important role in supporting, coaching and developing a small team, helping to build confidence, capability and consistency across the service. You'll act as a senior role model, sharing knowledge, providing guidance on complex cases and fostering a collaborative, high-performing team culture focused on delivering exceptional support to colleagues and managers.

What You'll Do

• Manage and develop an Employee Relations Specialist and People Assistant, ensuring both operational excellence and a high-quality customer experience. You'll allocate and oversee workload, provide coaching and guidance, support professional development, be a point of escalation and ensure employee relations and HR administration activities are delivered accurately, efficiently and in line with agreed service standards.
• Lead on complex and high-risk Employee Relations matters, managing sensitive cases from end to end, including disciplinary, grievance, absence, capability, organisational change and other complex employee issues. You'll ensure outcomes are fair, legally compliant, commercially sound and aligned with organisational values.
• Provide expert Employee Relations advice, guidance and coaching to managers across the full range of people matters, helping them navigate challenging situations, assess risk, consider options and make confident, well-informed decisions.
• Act as an escalation point for the wider ER and People Admin queries, providing support, direction and quality assurance on complex or high-profile cases, while sharing expertise and best practice to build capability across the team.
• Develop manager confidence and capability through a coaching-led approach, encouraging early intervention, effective people management and consistent decision-making, whilst helping managers handle sensitive conversations with empathy, clarity and professionalism.
• Lead and support key People projects and organisational change activity, balancing project work alongside operational case management and contributing to the continuous development of the People Services function.
• Identify, assess and manage employee relations risks, proactively escalating concerns where appropriate and working with stakeholders to minimise legal, operational and reputational risk to the organisation.
• Build strong and credible relationships across the business, becoming a trusted advisor to managers and stakeholders by providing pragmatic, commercially focused and people-centred solutions that meet both business and colleague needs.
• Use ER data, case insights and emerging trends to drive improvement, identifying recurring themes, organisational risks and opportunities to strengthen manager capability, improve colleague experience and reduce future ER issues.
• Contribute to the ongoing development of ER policies, processes and ways of working, helping to create a consistent, efficient and high-quality People Services Delivery function that reflects best practice and supports organisational objectives.