Halfords

Job Purpose

To provide Employee Relations (ER) advice and guidance to all areas of the business and manage ER cases across the estate. As an Employee Relations Advisor, you will take responsibility for providing outstanding support to the business and key stakeholders. Specifically, you will provide an ER advisory service to line managers across the Halfords Group, focusing on Company policy, procedure, and current legislation (UK and ROI). This advice will involve mitigating risk to the Company and must consider the commercial aspects of running the business.

Key Responsibilities

One Halfords family:

• Maintain an effective feedback loop with the Employee Relations Manager and People Business Partners to drive change;
• Build relationships across the business in order to obtain support when formal meeting attendance is required on case work;
• Support the People Team projects both businesses wide and ad hoc;
• Work cross functionally, supporting managers and key stakeholders across all of the Halfords Group;
• Support the Employee Relations Manager in all matters pertaining to ER;
• Support the team to implement any actions arising from the engagement survey, whilst actively participating in activities, which drive a culture focused on colleague engagement.

Wow our customers:

• Partner with the business to deliver a high quality, pro-active, and SLA compliant case management offer on ER issues such as; disciplinary, grievance, capability, appeals, absence management, the Equality Act, redundancy, TUPE, changing terms and conditions, probation, and flexible working, whilst ensuring consistency of decisions across the business;
• Upskill and develop line managers and work with the Employee Relations Manager and Group Shared Services Manager to develop, deliver and review training material and processes to upskill line manager capability;
• Provide ongoing coaching to managers to support them to consistently reach positive outcomes with their colleagues;
• Produce and create accurate documentation including letters and guidance to an excellent standard along with the day-to-day management of the People Advice email inbox;
• Provide managers and key stakeholders with consistent, policy complaint advice and guidance, whilst considering the employment legal and risk framework. This will be both face to face and remotely via telephone and Microsoft Teams;
• Ensure all ER templates utilised across the group are up to date and fit for purpose.

Be better every day:

• Continually seek ways in which operational efficiency can be achieved to provide outstanding support to the business and key stakeholders;
• Keep up to date with developments in employment legislation to ensure continuous development and improvement in the service offered;
• Ensure accurate records of all ER case outcomes and systems are updated (Hornbill, Dayforce etc) so that these can be used to provide monthly data and insights to the wider People Team to highlight trends and areas of concern;
• Escalate high risk cases to the Employee Relations Manager as and when appropriate;
• Support the Employee Relations Manager to draft, revise, and review all People related policies on an ad hoc and biannual basis;
• Contribute to team development through the sharing of knowledge, best practice, lessons learnt, and any changes or updates to matters affecting ER.

Pride in expertise:

• Provide the business with pragmatic and commercial based solutions;
• Manage all cases calls and data processed within the team in a highly discreet and confidential manner and in line with GDPR regulations;
• Liaise effectively with our legal trams on any cases requiring COT3’s and settlement agreements or cases that have escalated to early conciliation and or tribunal as necessary;
• Work closely with the People Support Specialists to ensure that relevant administration is processed accurately and in line with SLA;
• Utilise your knowledge to manage controllable costs, expenditure, and achieve budgets set for the team;
• Take part in an annual review of the service provided by the ER team to its key stakeholders, taking actions to build upon opportunities for improvement along with identifying areas to consolidate.

Key Skills/Experience

• Ideally level 5 CIPD qualified or working toward this from a level 3 CIPD qualification.
• ER experience, ideally within a shared services environment, providing advice and guidance to line managers at all levels within a high case volume and fast paced business.
• Excellent up to date knowledge of current employment law
• Experience in the effective handling and management of complex ER cases;

• Previous experience in dealing with ACAS and unions is desirable, but not essential;

• Excellent verbal and written communication and influencing skills, and ability to hold difficult conversations in a way which leads to the desired outcomes;
• Excellent organisational skills, with the ability to manage and prioritise own workload in order to meet tight deadlines, in a high-volume demanding environment  with changing priorities and project activity
• Self-motivated, and able to work at pace with accuracy and good attention to detail;

• Ability to work within a highly confidential environment with respect and integrity for the information that is managed discreetly and in accordance with GDPR regulations is essential.
• Able to work in a sensitive and diplomatic manner, while remaining confident and resilient;
• High level of integrity and trust is required to be successful in this role.
• Must be extremely honest, hardworking, trustworthy, and reliable
• Customer focused and service oriented, with experience in building and maintaining strong; relationships effectively with teams and stakeholders both face to face, and remotely via telephone or Microsoft Teams;
• Experience and confidence in communicating and challenging as well as supporting managers at all levels, flexing your style as necessary;
• Excellent coaching skills and effective questioning techniques;
• Experience of applying best practice and a commercial outlook to people issues;
• Excellent team player who works collaboratively for the success of the wider team;
• In possession of a valid and current driving licence.

Not sure you meet all the criteria? We'd encourage you to take the wheel and apply anyway! At Halfords we are committed to creating an inclusive workplace for our colleagues. We're an equal opportunities employer and proud to welcome applications from all backgrounds and embrace diversity within our one Halfords Family.