Main Purpose of the Post
The People and Culture Manager is responsible for the operational leadership and delivery of the organisation’s People and Culture function, ensuring that people practices, policies and processes are consistently applied, legally compliant, values led and effective across all services.
The role translates the organisation’s People and Culture strategy into practical, high quality delivery, supporting managers to manage their teams confidently, fairly, and in line with employment law, social care regulatory requirements and organisational values.
The post holder acts as the lead operational HR professional, overseeing day-to-day people activity, employee relations, policy and implementation, workforce data, and people systems, while escalating complex, high risk, or strategic matters to the Head of People and Culture.
The organisation is at an exciting point in its development, with a workforce of circa 180 staff and ambitious plans to grow in line with service expansion. The People and Culture function has a key role to play in supporting that growth, driving the transformation of people practices and the digitalisation of HR systems, with Employment Hero central to that agenda. The post holder will be expected to actively contribute to this work, helping to build a scalable, modern and data-informed function fit for the future.
Key responsibilities
Operational People and Culture Leadership
· Lead the day to day delivery of the People and Culture function, ensuring a responsive, professional and values driven service to both managers and staff.
· Translate organisational People and Culture strategy into clear operational plans, processes and priorities that support service delivery and workforce sustainability.
· Act as the primary point of contact for operational people matters, ensuring consistency, fairness and good practice across all services.
· Support the embedding of organisational values, behaviours and culture through people processes, leadership practice and management capability.
Employee Relations and Case Management
· Lead on the management of employee relations cases, including absence management, performance management, disciplinary, grievance, capability and informal resolution processes.
· Ensure cases are managed in a timely, proportionate and legally compliant manner, providing coaching and guidance to managers throughout.
· Prepare and quality assure documentation, investigation processes and outcome letter, ensuring robust decision making and defensible outcomes.
· Escalate, complex, sensitive, or high risk cases (e.g. restructures, dismissal, TUPE, or safeguarding related matters) to the Head of People and Culture, as appropriate.
Policy, Governance and Compliance
· Lead in devising, implementing, review of the People policies, procedures ensuing alignment with employment law, social care regulations and organisational values.
· Ensure compliance with safer recruitment standards, employment legislation, GDPR, CQC expectations and internal governance requirements.
· Maintain accurate records and audit trails to support inspections, internal assurance and external scrutiny.
· Contribute to the identification, monitoring and mitigation of people related risks, supporting the Head of People and Culture in maintaining the People Risk Register.
Recruitment, Workforce and Talent Management
· Oversee operational recruitment processes, ensuring safe, efficient and values based recruitment across all roles.
· Support managers with workforce planning, recruitment pipelines and on boarding to ensure services are appropriately staffed.
· Ensure induction, probation and mandatory training processes are consistently applied and monitored.
· Contribute to retention initiatives, engagement activity and workforce insight through data analysis and feedback mechanisms.
Management Support and Capability Building
· Provide practical coaching and advice to managers on people management, employment law and organisational expectations.
· Support the development of consistent management capability across the organisation, reinforcing leadership standards and values based behaviours.
· Promote manager self-service by developing the Employment Hero system that enable confident, compliant decision-making.
· Identify recurring themes or capability gaps and escalate these to inform organisational development activity.
People Data, Systems and Reporting
· Oversee the accuracy and integrity of the workforce data the Employment Hero system and people records.
· Produce regular people management reports, dashboards and insights gained from the Employment Hero system to support decision making at senior leadership level.
· Monitor key metrics such as absence, turnover, recruitment and E activity, identifying trends and improvement opportunities.
· Support continuous improvement of people systems and processes, including automation and efficiency improvements.
Team Leadership and Development
· Line manage the People and Culture team members (as applicable), providing supervision, coaching and performance management.
· Foster a supportive, high performing team culture that reflects organisational values.
· Ensure team members maintain professional competence and access appropriate learning and development.
· Support effective workload planning, prioritisation and service delivery within the People and Culture function.
Cross-Organisational Working
· Work collaboratively with Finance, Operational teams, service leaders and senior leadership team members to ensure people practices support high quality, person centred services.
· Act as an operational escalation point for people matters within delegated authority.
· Lead on organisational change initiatives, restructures and service developments from a people perspective.
· Represent the People and Culture function in internal forums, working groups and meetings as required.
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