Shoosmiths
Senior Manager - Performance & Talent
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The Role
“This is a hands-on senior role, requiring the postholder to move confidently between developing strategy, designing solutions and supporting practical implementation.”
This is a key role within the Performance & Talent Development team, responsible for shaping and delivering the firm's talent and performance agenda.
Working closely with business leaders, HR colleagues and the wider People Directorate, the role will help build a high-performing, future-ready workforce by strengthening talent pipelines, developing future leaders, supporting career progression and embedding a culture of meaningful performance conversations.
The role combines strategic thinking with practical delivery, designing solutions that support both current business priorities and future workforce needs.
Core Responsibilities
Performance & High-Performance Culture
- Lead the ongoing development of the firm's performance framework and annual performance processes.
- Drive a culture of high-quality performance conversations, continuous feedback and accountability.
- Use insight and feedback to evaluate effectiveness and continuously improve the employee experience and business impact of performance initiatives.
Talent Management & Succession Planning
- Lead the firm's approach to talent identification, talent reviews and succession planning.
- Partner with HR Business Partners and senior leaders to build strong talent pipelines for critical roles.
- Analyse talent trends and identify priority actions to strengthen organisational capability and future readiness.
Talent, Leadership & Career Development
- Design and deliver talent and career development programmes that support growth, progression and succession.
- Work with business leaders and HR teams to identify capability priorities and create targeted development interventions.
- Evaluate programme impact and continuously enhance content, participation and outcomes.
Promotions & Career Progression
- Support and continuously improve promotion processes, including Partner promotions.
- Ensure processes are fair, transparent, inclusive and aligned to business needs.
- Provide insight and recommendations to support effective promotion decisions and talent development.
Future Skills & Workforce Capability
- Identify emerging capability requirements and future skills needed to support the firm's strategy.
- Partner with Emerging Talent, HR Business Partners and business leaders to develop interventions that build future capability and support career growth.
- Support the development of talent strategies for key populations, including emerging talent pathways.
Supporting Responsibilities
These responsibilities are important to the role and are delivered through collaboration and influence across the wider People function.
Workforce Planning
- Partner with Finance, HR Business Partners and business leaders to support workforce planning activities.
- Contribute talent and capability insights that inform future workforce decisions and organisational planning.
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Talent Analytics & Insight
- Use people data and talent insights to inform decision making and identify organisational priorities.
- Develop meaningful measures and dashboards that help leaders understand talent trends and risks.
- Translate data into practical recommendations and actions.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
- Ensure talent, succession, promotion and performance approaches support the firm's inclusion objectives.
- Partner with DE&I colleagues to identify opportunities to improve representation and progression outcomes.
Change & Adoption
- Support the successful implementation of talent and performance initiatives through effective communication, engagement and change management.
- Develop practical guidance, resources and toolkits that help leaders and employees adopt new approaches.
Innovation & Continuous Improvement
- Bring external insight and leading practice into the firm's talent and performance agenda.
- Champion innovation and continuous improvement to ensure approaches remain relevant, effective and future-focused.
Skills And Qualifications
We are looking for an individual who brings strong expertise in talent, performance and leadership development, alongside the curiosity and commercial mindset to broaden their impact across workforce planning and organisational capability.
Essential Experience
- Significant experience in Talent Management, Performance Management or Leadership Development.
- Experience designing and delivering talent, succession or career development programmes.
- Experience partnering with senior leaders to influence talent decisions and organisational priorities.
- Strong change management and stakeholder engagement skills.
- Ability to use people data and insight to inform decisions and drive action.
- Experience operating within a complex, fast-paced organisation.
Desirable Experience
- Workforce planning or strategic workforce capability initiatives.
- Professional services, legal, consulting, financial services or other partnership-led environments.
- Experience supporting senior promotion processes.
- Experience developing talent dashboards, metrics and workforce insight reporting.
Personal Qualities
- Strategic and commercially minded.
- Collaborative and relationship-focused.
- Curious, forward-thinking and solutions-oriented.
- Comfortable influencing senior stakeholders.
- Passionate about developing people, teams and organisational capability.
The Firm
Shoosmiths is the law firm clients choose for excellent service, incisive thinking and above all for our ability to focus on what matters. From offices across the UK and Brussels, we support some of the world’s most exciting and ambitious businesses; amazing clients making an impact. We empower our people to be their authentic selves and deliver together in supportive teams committed to excellence and innovation. The first top 50 law firm to achieve ‘Platinum Standard’ Investors in People, our values and culture are not just words on our website but are the heartbeat of the firm.
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We have an outstanding benefits package to complement our competitive remuneration system. In addition to the competitive salaries, great working environment and high-quality work, we believe that all staff should be rewarded for their commitment to the continued success of the firm through a comprehensive and flexible range of benefits.
To discover more about our benefits, please visit: Benefits Package
Shoosmiths is proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. Disability Confident is a government scheme designed to encourage employers to recruit and retain disabled people and those with long term conditions. The Disability Confident scheme replaced the Two Ticks Positive about Disabled People scheme. We had been accredited as a two tick employer for many years - Disability Confident broadens and develops that original commitment, and demonstrates we have adopted a proactive approach to employing disabled people and developing their abilities.
As part of our accreditation, we commit to interviewing any applicants with a disability who meet the essential criteria for each vacancy. In some circumstances we may only be able to interview those that best meet the essential criteria due to the volume of applications received.
Further information on the Disability Confident scheme is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/disability-confident-campaign
We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to and usable by everyone. If you have a disability or long-term condition and would like to receive information in a different way, or need us to make any adjustments, changes or do anything differently during the recruitment process, please get in touch with the Talent Acquisition team on Experienced.Hire@shoosmiths.com. We can consider your needs and requirements, and how we can assist you to apply for our roles. For example we can provide a copy of our application via email so that you can complete it using your own accessibility software.
Equal Opportunities
Our approach to our people is underpinned by our approach to diversity, inclusion and well-being. Our ambition is to build a diverse and ambitious workforce that reflects all backgrounds and talents, and a workplace that is supportive and inclusive, recognises and nurtures talent, and has a strong sense of community between colleagues.
This means that everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, whatever their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.
If you’d like to learn more about this opportunity or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Warren Cooper at Warren.Cooper@shoosmiths.com.
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