Job Type: Full-time (minimum 30 hours per week)
Salary: Starting from £60,000 (FTE) per annum
We offer a competitive salary package aligned with current market rates for this role. The final offer will reflect your skills, experience, and qualifications, alongside our commitment to internal equity.
Location: This is a hybrid role where you’ll be based from home with regular travel for meetings. Candidates must be based in the South East or South West of England.
About us
We’re a full-service HR consultancy that partners with clients to help their people and businesses thrive. Sometimes we act as their in‑house HR team, sometimes as an extension of their existing people team — but always as a trusted partner that genuinely cares.
We believe people are the foundation of every business’s success. Our job is to help clients create workplaces where everyone can do their best work.
The role
As Employee Relations Manager, you’ll be accountable for the work of a small team, focusing on quality, performance and reputation of Fitzgerald’s Employee Relations service.
This is a hands‑on role, balancing line management of a small team with complex casework. You’ll work closely with the Head of Employee Relations and our People Partnering teams, ensuring ER is integrated, consistent and impactful across everything we deliver.
What you’ll be doing
You’ll oversee and manage the performance of a small team, making sure you deliver a brilliant service to our clients. As well as keeping your team engaged and meeting targets, you’ll provide expert advice and guidance to our internal team on a variety of complex employee relations activities.
As well as working on standalone projects (complex investigations, business change exercises, policy and contract development etc), you will be the first point of contact for a small portfolio of accounts that require a focus on employee relations, which you’re responsible for growing and developing.
Your work will include:
- Overseeing the work of your team, making sure it meets our value to sweat the small stuff; checking it’s right, good quality and meets the client brief.
- Reviewing your team’s time, approving it, making sure everything’s recorded properly, and keeping an eye on time recorded against estimates and proposals that relate to your client work — making sure we tell clients when we’re going above agreed fees, and (when necessary) negotiate increased time so the project remains profitable and there’s no surprises for the client.
- Understanding the workload across your team and helping to balance this so that your people are able to meet their billing targets (but are not overloaded) and work with the Head of Employee Relations to support other teams to meet their targets and goals.
- Making sure you and your team are following our account management and client care processes and procedures and building strong relationships with your client portfolios to establish you and us as a trusted adviser and strategic partner.
- Competently and efficiently investigating and/or advising on a range of high‑risk and complex employee relations cases (e.g. grievance, disciplinary, whistleblowing, bullying and harassment) to resolve ER issues for our clients, including chairing meetings, delivering outcomes and drafting correspondence on behalf of our clients, ensuring they achieve the best possible outcome.
- Leading and providing strategic guidance on business change processes, including redundancy, restructuring and TUPE to manage risk for our clients and ensure they take commercial but compliant routes when navigating the relevant processes.
- Quality reviewing a range of documentation of mixed complexity, drafted by your team and other internal services teams (e.g. investigation reports and letters relating to ER or business change processes, settlement agreements, policies, procedures and contracts of employment) to ensure they are accurate and of exceptional quality.
- With oversight from the Head of Employee Relations, producing monthly time breakdowns for clients where required, and liaising with your colleagues and Associates where relevant, so that clients have full transparency on work that’s been completed for them when required.
- Handling any client complaints or queries relating to your team’s client projects and/or portfolios and bring these to the attention of the Head of ER when necessary so we can resolve client concerns swiftly.
About you
You’re an experienced Employee Relations professional with deep technical expertise, strong people management skills and a genuinely human approach.
You’ll bring:
- Recent experience in roles such as: HR/People Business Partner, Employee Relations Manager/Specialist/Business Partner.
- Significant experience leading various business change programmes, including redundancy, restructuring, and TUPE.
- Significant experience of supporting and advising managers across a range of high risk and complex ER casework and providing strategic advice on various business change processes and procedures.
- Experience of undertaking complex employee relations investigations.
- A keen eye for detail and accuracy, with the ability to spot and correct errors in own and others’ work, expecting high quality work from self and others.
- Experience reviewing and providing feedback on colleagues’ work, ensuring quality and accuracy with meticulous attention to detail.
- Highly organised with the ability to help team members prioritise a busy workload and manage a variety of different tasks.
- Effective communication and influencing skills at a senior level – able to frame communication in a way that others will respond to, without having the authority to tell people what to do.
- Ability to think independently and apply employment law to a variety of straightforward and complex situations, including a fast‑paced, commercial environment.
- Identify risks of taking different courses of action, seeking advice when needed and the ability to think innovatively and rationally about decisions, coming up with creative solutions.
- Excellent communication skills in written and spoken English, with experience drafting detailed reports and outcome letters that effectively pull together a broad set of information, with the ability to effectively structure a document and construct an argument.
- Strong consulting, communication, and influencing skills, including confidence in managing key stakeholders.
- A commercial approach, enjoying working in a target‑driven environment.
- Some experience of management.
- Has the ability to accept and provide feedback, be challenged on advice and work well under pressure.
CIPD Level 7 or equivalent employment law qualification (or qualified by experience at that level) is essential. Experience in consultancy or professional services is desirable.
You must be based in the South East or South West of England. You’ll also need a UK driving licence and be happy to travel as required for the role.
The Perks
We might be biased, but we think this role is exciting, purposeful, and full of opportunity. And because we like to look after our people, here’s what you can look forward to when you join us:
- Competitive salary (starting from £60,000 per annum FTE)
- 25 days’ annual leave to start, rising to 27 after one year and 29 after two years, plus bank holidays
- Career qualifications supported and paid for, with real opportunities to grow
- Monthly homeworking allowance and all equipment provided
- Flexible working patterns for a healthy work‑life balance
- Pension scheme options (including salary sacrifice) and 4% employer pension contributions, with a minimum of 4% employee contributions
- Life assurance at four times basic salary
- Shopping discounts platform, flu vaccinations, and technology and cycle‑to‑work schemes
- Medicash health cash plan and wellbeing benefits (including EAP)
- Enhanced family leave and twice‑yearly all‑staff get‑togethers
- A growing, progressive business with people at its heart
#Workthatworksforyou
At Fitzgerald, we think one‑size‑fits‑all doesn’t make anyone look good. Instead, we promise to make space for you to bring your whole self to work, not just your job title.
Job titles change, after all. Working here, in time, yours might too. We’re betting the future of our business on each of us, so we don’t just talk about development – we invest in it. Specifically, we invest in you.
So, if you want to learn something new or deepen your expertise, you do the work and we’ll support you all the way. Because when you get better at what you do, so do we.
And when life throws curveballs — which it always will — we’ll make sure you’ve got the flexibility and support you need. We understand that time to rest and recharge is important, and we’ll make sure you get it, along with a work/life balance that treats you like an adult (and trusts you accordingly).
Because we want everyone here to play a big part in what comes next for Fitzgerald, to build our future, be involved in decisions, and be valued for your input.
We’re Fitzgerald. We do work that works for you.
How to apply
If this sounds like your kind of role, APPLY NOW (you’ll be redirected to our careers site) — we can’t wait to hear from you.
Our application process helps you get to know us just as much as it helps us get to know you. Following an initial call to get to know you better, it includes a written assessment, a virtual interview, psychometric testing, and a concluding in‑person meeting.
We’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive team and actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds.
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