HR Advisory Manager

Salary: £45,000 to £53,000 DoE + £5,000, flexible benefit and other benefits including 25 days holiday + 8 Bank Holiday & 1 additional day, Pension, Bonus & more

Overview of your experience & must-haves

Ø  HR Advisory, HR Generalist and Employee Relations (ER) / Employment Law experience

Ø  Stakeholder Management

Ø  People Management – including appraisals, development training & developing mixed ability teams

Ø  Worked in a volume driven and challenging environment

 Your opportunity

The Shared Services Organisation requires a second Manager to support with the smooth running of the HR Advisory team within the HR Services function. The primary function of this role is to manage and develop an HR Advisory team who provide generalist first line HR support to our business, minimise commercial and legal risk and ensure that the customer is at the heart of everything we do. Your role will involve stakeholder management so building strong relationships with key operational teams internally and more broadly across the organisation is essential. You will also be responsible for escalations from within and about the Advisory team and will be expected to make recommendations for improvements where necessary, get buy in for any proposed changes through to implementation where agreed with the support of the HR Advisory Senior Manager and the HR Services Director.

The HR Services team totals 184 people, 113 of whom are based in Milton Keynes (including the Helpdesk Manager), and 71 of whom are based in Hyderabad, India, all as part of the Shared Services Organisation. The Shared Services Organisation is based in Milton Keynes in the UK and India, supporting the UK and Swiss Firms comprising approx. 20,000 Partners and staff including 24 UK Offices and 6 Swiss offices.

Your role

Leadership & Strategy

·         Review the team Service Level Expectations (SLE), measure achievement against them and implement improvement activities where necessary.

·         Support in the delivery of consistent HR Services to the Firm and the SSO vision across HR Services.

·         Be actively aware of all projects that could impact the service and take an active involvement in their successful delivery as required.

·         Support the growth and development of services across HR Services, supporting and contributing towards ongoing process streamlining and automation opportunities and adhering to set governance.

·         Take an active role in the recruitment of team members and the shaping of their induction programme and on-going training.

·         Develop strategy for the creation of content on the appropriate knowledge hub to support the Advisory resolution of queries i.e. HR Online.

·         Deputise and support other HR Services teams during periods of management absence.

·         Keep abreast of company policy and process developments and ensure knowledge management systems are updated to reflect this.

 Advisory Management

·         Managing a team to deliver an excellent case management service, maintaining a firmwide approach wherever possible to all processes and ensuring that stakeholders feel a real sense of ownership with minimal touch points and handoffs.

·         Ensure resource levels meet operational requirements and ensure effective resource allocation of the Advisory team at all times.

·         Understand all processes and key contacts involved with employee processes, policies and services.

·         Build a culture of constant reflection on areas for improvement. Give the team the confidence to put forward solutions and work with them to implement these.

·         Produce and review weekly/monthly management information for discussion with other managers in order to identify process improvement issues or learning needs.

·         Performance management of the team, including check in’s, providing feedback, and dealing with absence management and return to work interviews.

·         Provide appropriate coaching and mentoring to team members to build and progress against development plans and seek to upskill and cross-train wherever appropriate.

·         Ensure all processes and procedures comply with relevant legislation and audit requirements.

 Stakeholder Management

·         Build trusted relationships with HR Services peers and colleagues to enable the team to be provided with the relevant information to perform their role effectively.

·         Evaluate incoming demand and work with stakeholders to ensure the smooth delivery of existing and new work that the Advisory team delivers.

·         Identify potential risks or issues to the effectiveness of the service and work with the HR Advisory Senior Manager to resolve or escalate.

·         Build trusted relationships with HR and other teams as appropriate.

·         Liaison with other Shared Services Organisation teams as appropriate.

·         Management of relationships with third-party suppliers where appropriate.

 Escalations & Complaint Resolution

·         Manage your allocated queries of a highly complex and individual nature through to resolution.

·         Deal with allocated escalations and complaints to an exceptional standard and take ownership for developing lessons learnt and making improvements where necessary.

·         Provide firm wide and overseas disaster management support alongside the HR Services Leadership team.

 Your professional experience

Business Acumen

·         Commercially minded with the ability to interpret business objectives and drivers.

·         Able to positively challenge strategic decisions.

 Stakeholder Management

·         Has the ability to build and maintain positive relationships with colleagues and stakeholders.

·         Ability to manage continuous improvement and mitigate risks and issues.

·         Able to establish themselves as a trusted business advisor.

 Service Delivery

·         Front line HR knowledge and experience is essential.

·         Client service experience within a high demand environment is essential.

·         Assumes accountability for services provided and assumes ownership of team decisions despite outcome.

·         Proactively looks for opportunities and is able to put forward effective, relevant business solutions.

·         Ability to lead and motivate through change whilst maintaining a positive environment.

·         Can take responsibility for delivery of high quality results.

·         Can manage strategic priorities in times of conflict.

·         Previous experience managing a service delivery function required.

·         Experience of the core Microsoft Office packages is essential and knowledge of SAP or similar HR systems is desirable.

 People Leadership

·         Able to play a key coaching role and performance management role with all team members by providing support as appropriate.

·         Acts as a role model and inspires others to reach their potential.

·         Encourages a culture of innovation and values the ideas and opinions of others

·         Promotes an open and supportive culture.