Head of Employee Relations

Sector: UK&I | Multi-site Consumer Organisation

Location:

Flexible UK base with regular travel across key UK locations

This is not a traditional Employee Relations leadership role.

We are partnering with a major UK&I consumer organisation to appoint a Senior Employee Relations Manager into a role with the breadth, influence and strategic ownership that would readily be recognised as Head of Employee Relations in many organisations.

And the timing is particularly interesting.

Over the last three years, the organisation has built a credible, highly regarded Employee Relations function from the ground up. Policies have been rewritten, manager capability strengthened, case-management standards transformed and ER has established genuine credibility with operational and senior leadership teams.

The foundations are there.

This appointment is about what comes next.

With significant employment legislation on the horizon, an evolving Industrial Relations landscape, increasing ER complexity and an opportunity to extend ER capability into a much broader business network, the next phase requires a different kind of ER leader.

Someone who can see around corners.

Someone who can set strategy rather than simply execute somebody else's and someone equally comfortable rolling their sleeves up and getting into the realities of a fastmoving operational business.

Reporting to the People Director, you will lead a specialist ER/IR team and take responsibility for shaping and delivering the organisation's Employee and Industrial Relations strategy.

You'll operate across a complex population encompassing Head Office, supply chain, production, warehousing, transport and other multi-site operational environments.

You'll inherit strong foundations and a team that has itself become a source of talent for the wider People function, with previous team members successfully progressing into People Partner roles.

Your role is not to arrive and rebuild what already works. It is to maintain the brilliant basics, continue developing the team and move the function into its next stage of maturity.

The remit spans end-to-end ER/IR strategy, union and Employee Forum relationships, complex cases and tribunals, policy, manager capability, engagement and ER insight.

This is one of the most important evolutions in the role.

Employment legislation and forthcoming trade union reforms have the potential to change the IR landscape considerably. The organisation already has recognised yet immature trade-union relationships within parts of its transport operation, while interest in extending union access into other operational populations is increasing.

The question is no longer simply how existing relationships are managed.

It is: what should the organisation's future Industrial Relations strategy be?

That could mean evolving existing arrangements, responding to further recognition activity and determining how relationships should operate across different sites and populations.

You will have specialist IR capability within your team, but we need somebody with genuine credibility around the table.

You will have personally operated in unionised environments and understand collective relationships, negotiation and consultation. Importantly, you will have contributed to the decision-making and strategy behind negotiations, rather than simply being given a predetermined position and asked to deliver it.

This requires judgement, commerciality and sophisticated influencing skills.

The changing employment landscape creates a much broader strategic agenda.

This person will need to horizon-scan: understand what's coming, interpret what it means…