Employee Relations Lead - Projects; FTC

Description

The Employee Relations Lead – Projects supports key people-related activity arising from mergers, acquisitions, transfers and organisational change, including TUPE, due diligence, consultation planning, employee communications, risk assessment and post-transfer integration.

In addition this position will also provide expert guidance and end-to-end employee relations case management across multiple business segments, providing leadership, oversight and practical support on complex employee relations matters, ensuring consistent, legally compliant and commercially balanced outcomes aligned to organisational policies, values and regulatory requirements.

The Employee Relations Lead
-Projects reports to the Head of Employee Relations GB and ensures ER key processes are aligned to address local business needs and regulatory requirements.

The Role

• Support and Lead ER input into key mergers, acquisitions, divestments, transfers and integration activity, including early-stage due diligence, people risk assessment, TUPE analysis, consultation planning, employee communications and post-transfer integration support.

• Partner with Legal, Compliance, HR, Payroll, Reward, Talent Advisory, business leaders and external advisers, where required, to ensure M&A activity is delivered in a compliant, coordinated and colleague-focused way.

• Plan and manage consultation activity, including collective and individual consultation where applicable, ensuring affected employees and representatives receive clear, timely and accessible information and that consultation is meaningful, well-documented and appropriately risk-managed.

• Manage and provide escalation support for complex, high-risk or sensitive employee relations cases, including disciplinary, grievance, performance, absence, whistleblowing, harassment, conflict resolution, changes to terms and conditions, settlement discussions and involuntary exits.

• Identify employee relations risks, trends and themes arising from casework, organisational change and M&A activity, translating insight into preventative action, manager coaching, policy improvements and process enhancements.

• Support the development and embedding of repeatable, defensible and scalable ER processes, templates, guidance and governance standards, particularly for change programmes, TUPE, redundancy, harmonisation and integration activity.

• Prepare documentation and support litigation readiness for employment tribunal claims, working with the Head of Employee Relations, Legal and relevant business stakeholders.

• Act as a point of escalation for potential regulatory breaches, conduct issues or wider governance concerns, ensuring appropriate referral and follow-up.

• Contribute to wider HR and business projects, including policy development, organisational design, cultural integration, manager capability and continuous improvement activity.

What you'll bring

• Significant experience in Human Resources with a strong focus on employee relations, employment law, policy application, manager coaching and complex case management.

• Strong working knowledge of UK employment law and best practice, including disciplinary, grievance, performance, absence, redundancy, TUPE, collective consultation, employment tribunal claims and employee representative consultation.

• Proven experience supporting organisational change, restructures, mergers, acquisitions, transfers, integrations or other complex people-change activity.

• Ability to lead small scale collective consultation exercises

• Ability to assess people-related risk in M&A and change activity, balancing legal compliance, commercial objectives, colleague experience and reputational considerations.

• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, with confidence advising senior leaders and working collaboratively across HR, Legal, Compliance, Payroll, Reward, Talent and business teams.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to draft clear case documentation, consultation materials, briefing notes, employee communications and leadership updates.

• Strong judgement, discretion and resilience when handling sensitive, confidential or high-pressure matters.

• Highly organised and able to manage competing priorities, complex timelines and ambiguous situations in a fast-paced environment.

• Analytical mindset with the ability to use ER data, themes and case insights to identify risks, improve processes and strengthen manager capability.

• Knowledge of regulatory frameworks…