Talent and Development Officer

You may not have heard of us, but there's a good chance you've enjoyed our products. Avara Foods is one of the UK's leading food businesses, supplying chicken and turkey to the country's major supermarkets and well-known restaurants.

We own and manage our entire supply chain, from farms to factory and all the way to the customer door - meaning we have careers that cover a whole range of functions. We have major processing sites across England and Wales, and an agricultural network of over 350 farms, spanning from North Yorkshire to the South Coast and Wales.

To develop and deliver effective talent pathways across Avara's Agriculture Division, supporting current and future workforce needs through proactive talent attraction, candidate engagement and strong sector partnerships. The role will build sustainable pipelines for roles across farms, mills, hatcheries and support functions, while promoting Avara as an employer of choice in the agricultural sector.

As Talent and Development Officer
you’ll be working Monday to Friday 08:30 - 17:00 and will involve travel across Agriculture sites.

• Work with Agriculture leaders to understand workforce requirements and develop attraction and succession plans
• Working with Resourcing and Communications team to create engaging role adverts, campaign content and attraction materials that promote Agriculture careers at Avara
• Liaise with and support resourcing team on hiring activity, offers, onboarding and pre-employment compliance.
• Build relationships with agricultural professionals, industry groups, membership bodies, colleges, universities, schools and training providers.
• Represent Avara at agricultural shows, careers events, industry conferences and networking opportunities alongside HR, Resourcing and other functional colleagues.
• Support graduate, placement, apprenticeship and internship pathways liaising with HR, Resourcing and Development teams
• Partner with Agriculture Managers, Area Managers, Hatchery Managers, Mill Managers, HR and People Development colleagues to align talent pathways, learning activity and progression routes with business priorities.
• Share labour market, candidate pipeline and hiring insight to support workforce planning, succession planning and skills development with HR team.
• Identify opportunities to improve attraction activity, candidate engagement, selection processes and employer branding, ensuring compliance with employment legislation, company policy and equality, diversity and inclusion principles

• Experience developing talent pipelines, career pathways or early careers initiatives for specialist, operational or hard-to-fill roles.
• Experience developing development and apprentice routes, talent management and internal succession planning.
• Experience building relationships with internal stakeholders and external partners, including colleges, universities, training providers, industry bodies or community organisations.
• Experience in talent attraction, candidate engagement, hiring support or workforce planning, ideally within agriculture, food manufacturing, farming or a related sector.
• Experience creating attraction campaigns, careers content or employer brand materials, and using HR or recruitment systems to maintain records and provide hiring insight.
• Excellent communication, relationship-building and stakeholder influencing skills.
• Experience in a Learning or Talent development environment
• Strong organisational skills, with the ability to prioritise and work proactively.
• Good commercial awareness and understanding of labour market trends.
• Confidence using Microsoft Office, HR…