HR Advisor

HR Change Adviser (Fixed Term)

Location: UK (Hybrid)

Contract: Fixed-term (approx. 6 months)

The opportunity:

We are recruiting three HR Change Advisers to join a dedicated HR Change team delivering a large-scale transformation programme across a complex higher education organisation.

These roles report directly into the HR Change Manager and are critical to supporting multiple, concurrent change programmes, including a major Professional Services and Schools transformation.

This is not a generalist HR advisory role. It is a hands-on change and transformation position requiring strong employment law knowledge, confidence in consultation settings, and the ability to operate independently from day one.

What you'll be doing:

You will work at the heart of organisational change activity, supporting leaders through design, consultation, and implementation phases.

Key responsibilities include:

• Heavy involvement in formal consultation meetings, providing clear, confident advice on employment law, process, and people impacts
• Preparing thoroughly for each consultation, understanding individual impacts, ring fencing arrangements, and proposed structures in advance
• Responding to employee questions during consultation meetings
• Supporting multiple change programmes simultaneously, tracking progress, upcoming phases, risks, and dependencies
• Drafting and quality-assuring critical documentation ahead of each phase, including:
• Consultation documents
• Equality Impact Assessments
• Structure charts and role mapping
• Business cases for senior leadership approval
• Supporting the HR Change Manager with risk identification and mitigation, proactively flagging issues before escalation
• Supporting the implementation phase, including:
• Preparing interview assessment materials
• Advising on selection processes
• Sitting on interview panels where required
• Supporting the preparation of redundancy calculations and settlement agreements, including mutually agreed terminations
• Collating and checking change data, working closely with HR Change Coordinators to ensure accuracy and consistency
• Attending trade union meetings alongside senior HR colleagues to build understanding of live issues and concerns

What we're looking for:

This role requires someone who can step in fast, take ownership, and deliver with minimal oversight.

Essential experience:

• Proven experience supporting organisational change and transformation programmes
• Strong experience of employee consultation, including restructures and redundancy processes
• Excellent working knowledge of UK employment law in a change context
• Confidence operating in consultation meetings and answering complex HR questions in real time
• Exceptional attention to detail and accuracy
• Ability to manage multiple work streams and competing deadlines simultaneously
• Resilience and confidence working in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment

Highly desirable:

• Experience in Higher Education, with an understanding of Professional Services and Schools structures
• Experience supporting large-scale or multi-programme change
• Experience liaising with trade unions
• CIPD Level 5 (or working towards)

Why this role?

• Opportunity to work on a major, high-profile transformation
• Exposure to complex consultation and implementation activity at scale
• Autonomous, trusted role with real responsibility
• Collaborative, specialist HR Change environment