Ocado Retail
People Partner
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Role Title: People Partner
Contract type: Permanent
Location: Hatfield (Hybrid working - 3 days in the office)
Working hours per week: 40 hours
Level: Manager
Reports to: Rosie Quinn
Application Closing Date: 2nd October 2026
About us
Our mission is to deliver joy in every shop, through unbeatable choice, unrivalled service, and reassuringly good value. We’re also on a mission to empower our business with smart technology; we've recently launched our AI Academy, providing a tailored AI learning journey for every colleague.
We’re Ocado Retail, a market-leading joint venture between Ocado Group and M&S, and the world’s largest dedicated online supermarket, ocado.com. Not only is Ocado the only place to shop a full range of M&S food online, it’s also the home to the widest online supermarket range in the UK and champion of small, independent brands. We’re also the brains behind Zoom by Ocado, our same-day grocery delivery service.
About the team and the role
As part of the People Team, you’ll play a huge role in helping Ocado Retail colleagues continue to love what we do. We’re a small, close knit team, focused on recruiting, developing and retaining top talent, driving high engagement and creating an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive - both in our Head Office site in Hatfield, and our Customer Hub in Sunderland.
Your role will be to partner with Leaders to help them build an engaging, inclusive and high performance culture. You’ll use your expert generalist HR knowledge, business acumen and partnering skills to ensure we deliver strategic people initiatives that meet capability and meet our business priorities. You’ll work closely in partnership with our People Specialists (Reward, Talent Acquisition & Talent Enablement & People Experience) to deliver a joined up yet tailored colleague experience and there’s always opportunity to grow your specialist skills through project work with these teams.
What you’ll do
- Strategic Business Partnering: Partner with functional leaders and subject matter experts to diagnose, align, and drive strategic People priorities that boost business performance. You will advise and coach leaders on all aspects of people activities e.g., organisational design and effectiveness, change management, culture, engagement, and team development, ensuring business strategies align with wider People goals.
- Integrated Talent & Workforce Planning: Partner closely with Talent Partners and Centres of Excellence to deliver an integrated approach to headcount governance and organisational growth. You will support Talent Partners in translating business goals into proactive talent roadmaps, co-facilitating business talent reviews and succession mapping by bringing deep functional context, validating headcount plans, aligning team structures, and preparing the business for both internal mobility and strategic external hiring.
- Deploy Core Cycle People Activity: Drive and land core people activity, including Talent, Performance, Reward, and Reward cycles across your functional areas. Leveraging central frameworks, tools, and cycle design, you will exercise local autonomy to contextualise and embed these initiatives with business leaders, ensuring a joined-up colleague lifecycle.
- Employee Relations & Policy Best Practice: Act as the expert advisor and coach for all employee relations cases within your function. You will champion policy best practice, translating central employment frameworks into fair, pragmatic local decisions that balance commercial risk, colleague well-being, and organisational values.
- Data-Driven Insights & Commercial Impact: Leverage people analytics, market trends, and workforce insights to provide senior stakeholders with actionable data. You will use data to identify functional trends, inform talent decisions, measure cycle impact, and drive continuous performance improvement across your business areas.
- Always Be Curious: Stay ahead of external HR best practices, emerging AI tools, and market trends to continuously elevate your partnering approach. You will champion self-service tools and tech-enabled processes within your business areas, empowering managers and colleagues to drive operational efficiency.
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Who you are
- Proven Strategic Partnering: Experience partnering effectively with senior leaders and cross-functional teams. You bring a track record of providing strategic HR guidance while balancing business objectives with empathetic colleague care.
- Employee Relations & Policy Expertise: Strong working knowledge of UK employment law with deep experience translating policy best practice into sound, pragmatic decisions. You are confident in evaluating complex employee relations risks and coaching leaders through sensitive people matters.
- Landing Strategy & Frameworks: Proven ability to take centrally designed frameworks (Talent, L&D, Performance, Reward) and exercise local autonomy to land, contextualise, and embed them within your business areas to drive engagement and performance.
- Data-Led Decision Making: Confident in gathering, interpreting, and presenting people analytics and workforce insights to influence strategic decision-making, identify functional trends, and solve business challenges.
- Influencing & Communication: Outstanding communication, mediation, and facilitation skills. You adapt your approach seamlessly to build trust, challenge constructively, and align stakeholders at all levels of the business.
- Agility & Leadership: Highly resilient and adaptable in fast-paced, ambiguous, and evolving environments. You demonstrate strong capability in delivering through others, whether managing direct reports or matrix-leading cross-functional project teams.
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What’s in it for you
By joining Ocado Retail, you’ll have the chance to experience life at the world’s largest online retailer, work with an amazing bunch of people who challenge what’s possible each day, and grow your skills and career in online retail. You'll also be part of our AI Academy, a dedicated learning journey designed to empower every colleague with the smart technology skills of the future.
If that’s not enough to tempt you, you’ll also get access to loads of great benefits to sweeten the deal. Here’s a taste of what we offer:
- Health & Wellbeing: Private medical insurance with option to add your family, Digital GP appointments, market-leading family policies, mental health support, discounted gym memberships, dental insurance, and more.
- Spend & Save: Annual bonus scheme split between personal and business objectives, recognition with reward platform, up to 7% matched pension contributions, 15% Ocado discount, 20% M&S discount, free breakfast every day in the office, electric vehicle leasing scheme, and free shuttle bus from Hatfield station to the office.
- Never miss the moments that matter: Hybrid working, 26 days holiday plus 8 flexible bank holidays, options to buy extra holiday, 2 weeks work from anywhere, and lifestyle break opportunities.
Our Hiring Process
Lucky for us, we receive a high volume of applications and genuinely appreciate the time and effort invested by every candidate. To ensure a fair and thorough process, every application is reviewed by a member of our team. If your skills and experience are a strong match, a Talent Partner will contact you to discuss the role and guide you through the next steps of our hiring process.
Your Application and AI
In the spirit of innovation, we welcome you to use AI tools in your application, just as we use them in our own business at Ocado Retail. However, as you leverage this technology, please don't lose sight of the most important element: your unique self. Your experiences, passions, and personality are what truly set you apart. Ensure that your application still authentically conveys who you are and why you're a great fit for us.
Everyone’s welcome
We’re an equal opportunities employer, which means that we make sure all potential colleagues are treated fairly and equally. We want to ensure everyone has a fair chance to apply; if you need this job description in an alternative format (e.g., larger print, different document type, etc.), please reach out to us at careers@ocadoretail.com and we'll be happy to assist you, and if you require reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know on the application form.
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