Head of HR

Job description

Job responsibilities

As Head of HR, you will oversee the delivery of a forward thinking and efficient HR function that enables the delivery of NHSBSAs strategy and associated goals. You will be commercially minded and develop and implement a progressive HR approach that is aligned with the people strategy and organisational strategy and priorities, ensuring the NHSBSA is a great place to work and an employer of choice.

You will initially oversee all aspects of HR Operations, HR Business Partnering, Talent Acquisition, Reward and Recognition and People Data, working collaboratively with the Head of Organisation and Development and Head of Colleague Experience and Social impact to ensure our people offering is fully connected and there is collaborative working across teams to achieve agreed ambitions. With a strong understanding of employment law and best practice, you will ensure compliance while championing innovation and continuous improvement, with a focus on benefit realisation. You will create the conditions for a high-performing and productive team, ensuring efficiency and cost effectiveness across the function.

You will be accountable for leading the organisations HR approach, often in the absence of precedent, requiring the interpretation and application of employment law, policy, and best practice in highly complex and sensitive situations. This includes managing emotionally charged and high-stakes employment matterssuch as organisational change, senior-level disputes, and workforce planning.

You will provide expert guidance to the Leadership Team and senior stakeholders across the organisation, navigating ambiguity and balancing competing priorities to ensure people implications are fully considered in strategic decision-making. The role demands a high level of emotional intelligence, resilience, and discretion, as you will frequently handle confidential information, support the organisation through challenging transitions, and influence outcomes that affect the wellbeing and careers of staff at all levels.

In this role, you are accountable for

1. Developing and delivering a forward thinking approach for your areas of responsibility, which is aligned with the delivery of the NHSBSAs organisational and people strategies. You will lead on producing short and long term action plans that support delivery, through pro-active stakeholder engagement, best practice and legislative requirements, overseeing the implementation to achieve the business aims.

2. Setting the vision for and leading the HR team, inspiring and developing a high-performing team, fostering a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement, efficiency and professional growth. This includes providing coaching and support to build capability and professional development, through an inclusive and compassionate leadership approach. You will need to ensure that HR resources are agile and are deployed and managed effectively in order to respond to organisational need.

3. Acting as a strategic partner to the Leadership Team, influencing decisions with people insight and workforce data to shape local strategies to meet business and service needs. You will support and provide advice to senior managers across the range of specialist HR issues, including the interpretation of employment legislation, NHS policy and terms and conditions, national and local agreements, NHSBSA policies and procedures including restructures, redundancies, discipline and grievance etc.

4. Working with the senior management People team, ensure engagement across the People team and cross functional working, and that we are truly operating as one People team.

5. Overseeing all HR Operational matters, including all employee relation matters, HR policies and procedures and HR workforce systems, across the organisation. You will ensure effective and up to date HR advice is provided to enable effective management practices, and review, monitor and evaluate all HR Operational aspects to ensure they continue to be legally compliant, efficient, and aligned with organisational values and priorities. You will lead on complex employee relations matters, including employment tribunals, acquisitions and restructures.

6. Ensuring the delivery of a strategic HR Business Partnering service, driving the business performance and the delivery of both the People and Business strategies, ensuring, as appropriate, consistent application, implementation, and improvement across the business.

7. Across the people team, embedding the use of people analytics to inform decision-making, identify future data trends, track performance, and demonstrate return on investment.

8. Overseeing the strategic direction of Talent Acquisition within the NHSBSA, ensuring we attract and onboard the best talent and support the progression of our internal talented colleagues. The talent acquisition agenda will align closely with our wider people agenda in terms of inclusion and social impact, and drive workforce planning initiatives that align with current and future business need.

9. Working collaboratively across the People team, support and embed strategic workforce planning to enable the business to have an effective future workforce and people team initiatives are aligned to deliver this.

10. The continued transformation of our pay, reward and benefit strategic offering, ensuring this meets organisational priorities and colleagues needs, and reward and recognition strategies are fair, competitive and aligned, taking into account business efficiencies.

11. Ensures the HR budgets are maintained and value for money and efficiency adhered to, along with the compilation of benchmarking data and return on investment metrics relevant to the HR function as a whole.

12. Developing and maintaining effective working relationships using effective and pro-active communication mechanisms, with multiple stakeholders, including colleagues, trade union representatives and senior managers. You will also need to have strong relationships across the DHSC Arms Length Bodies People teams, collaborating on initiatives and best practices.

13. Working with the Internal Communication and Marketing Team, ensure there is a robust employee and communication engagement strategy in place that is sponsored by all key internal and external stakeholders and peer networks, translating the strategy into key engagement activities that ensure the delivery of the NHSBSA strategy.

14. Producing detailed and highly complex reports as well as develop and present papers as necessary to the People and Workforce board and Leadership Team, addressing Employment Law, new initiatives and projects.

15. Deputising for the People Director as required.

Person Specification

Personal Qualities, Knowledge & Skills

Essential

• In-depth knowledge of current UK Employment law and legislation.
• Strong people management skills, gained through managing and developing teams
• Competent IT computer skills
• Ability to multitask and prioritise diverse workload and work to deadlines.
• Ability to be responsible and accountable for decision making

Desirable

• HR information systems
• Budget Management
• Knowledge of Agenda for Change and the NHS Plan.

Experience

Essential

• Significant experience working at a senior level in a large, complex organisation and an emotive environment including input to development of People strategy and intelligent use of workforce information to inform strategic and operational decisions.
• Extensive experience of staff and budget management
• Experience in project management with proven ability to deliver projects on budget and on time with benefits realised.
• Significant experience of advising on HR policy, Employment Law and best practice.
• Experience of planning and delivering employee relations initiatives
• Ability to work at both a strategic and operational level

Desirable

• Tribunal case management
• Workforce planning
• Experience of working with NHS or public sector terms and conditions of service
• Contribution to strategic planning
• Experience of working closely with Trade Unions

Qualifications

Essential

• CIPD Chartered Member
• Educated to Degree level (or equivalent)
• Evidence of on-going Continuing Professional Development

Desirable

• Master's Degree in HRM

Personal Qualities, Knowledge & Skills

Essential

• Extensive specialist knowledge of developing and implementing HR policies and procedures and associated Employment Law and complex cases.
• Ability to assess potential problems and make sound judgements around issues that may have an adverse effect on the business from an Employee Relations perspective.
• Ability to demonstrate presence and credibility within the organisation.
• Ability to work at a strategic level developing new business and HR solutions to meet business need
• High level of communication skills to establish good working relationships with managers, staff and external organisations
• Innovative thinker able to use initiative and work well under pressure
• Sensitive people skills: a high level of emotional intelligence; excellent interpersonal skills; a wide understanding of people issues

Experience

Essential

• Significant experience of organisational change eg TUPE, restructure, redundancy

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer details

Employer name

NHS Business Services Authority

Address

Stella House

Goldcrest Way

Newcastle Upon Tyne

NE15 8NY

Employer's website

https://careers.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)