Employment Policy and Governance Manager

Part-time – On-site, EH52 5LY, West Lothian (with some hybrid flexibility)

We do things properly. Clear, fair and consistent, without overcomplications.

This is a new role, created to strengthen and refine how we operate – building capability across the business and ensuring our people decisions remain both commercially sound and practically applied.

We are looking for an experienced specialist in this space, someone who has spent time in the detail of commercially focused employment relations, policy and governance, and knows how to turn that experience into something that genuinely works in a business.

This is not a stepping‑stone role, nor is it a senior leadership position. It is a role aligned for someone who is commercial at this core, enjoys being close to the business, applying pragmatic judgement, shaping practical solutions, and helping others get it right without adding unnecessary bureaucracy or process.

What This Role Is Here To Do

Evolve and further strengthen our employment frameworks so they support the business in a highly pragmatic and commercially focused way – this is not policy or process just for the sake of it.

You will help make things clearer, more consistent and easier to apply across relevant policies, contracts, governance and guidance.

Your interaction sits squarely with the HR team, acting also as an experienced sounding board on more complex or higher‑risk situations, supporting the HRBPs as a peer specialist.

What You Will Be Doing

• Shape practical, usable employment frameworks: review and proactively evolve policies, handbook content and contractual terms, positioned in an engaging and culturally aligned manner.
• Ensure ongoing alignment and judgement against current and emerging UK employment legislation and employment landscapes.
• Keep things simple, clear, proportionate and workable in real business terms.
• Turn theoretical policy into real‑world, commercial business application – help design simple, practical guides and toolkits, translating policy into clear “what this means in practice” guidance.
• Help drive consistent and confident decision‑making across the business.
• Deliver focused, value‑adding improvements: take ownership of the existing internal ERB project, project manage and lead HR involvement.
• Where appropriate, refine and optimise what is already in place across the business rather than constantly over‑engineering.
• Ensure policy and framework outputs land and are used effectively, contributing also to commercial gain.
• Contracts and risk – handled with judgement: continue to refine and standardise contracts, clauses and key protections with a sharp commercial lens, ensuring consistency and compliance without unnecessary complexity, balancing risk with commercial reality.
• Put the right level of governance in place: establish clear, pragmatic frameworks for complex ER and escalation decision‑making, support consistency without creating bureaucracy, ensuring complex ER outcomes are commercial, fair, defensible and well‑documented, collate, track and report on key trends and centralised mitigation/intervention strategies.
• Supporting and building capability: act as an HRBP sounding board on complex or highly sensitive ER matters, provide constructive challenge and practical guidance, help build ongoing capability and confidence so reliance on escalation and risk continues to reduce over time.
• Lead third‑party and TU activity: lead any trade union engagement, negotiations and consultations; bring structure, consistency and a calm, credible approach; support capability development across internal teams.
• Keep policy and practice aligned: work closely with HR Operations to ensure consistency in application, support strong standards around documentation, GDPR and audit readiness aligned to employment legislation risk, make sure designed products work day‑to‑day and give correct commercial outputs.

How This Role Works

• HRBPs retain ownership of employee relations cases and decisions.
• You provide policies, expertise, frameworks and guidance.
• You step in where experience adds most value on complex or high‑risk matters.

It is about strengthening the system around decision‑making and upskilling for the future.

What We Are Looking For

A credible, experienced specialist who knows this space well and is comfortable operating in it.

You Will Likely Bring

• Strong employee relations experience, including complex casework.
• Experience leading third‑party and trade unions and leading various types of consultations.
• Solid knowledge of UK employment law and how it applies in practice.
• Experience developing and refining policies, contracts and general employment governance frameworks.

And Importantly, Someone Who

• Has real breadth and depth in this area, not just generalist HR experience or exposure.
• Focuses on practical, commercially sensible solutions.
• Is comfortable working alongside HRBPs at a peer‑to‑peer specialist level.
• Can translate complexity into clear, usable guidance.
• Influences with credibility, not hierarchy.
• Enjoys rolling sleeves up, being close to the detail and making things work properly.

What Good Looks Like

• Policies and contracts are simple, commercially focussed, clear, always current and easy to apply.
• Simple guidance that supports effective and commercially robust decision‑making.
• The business stays proactively aligned to legislation changes and the evolved employment landscape so there are no last‑minute fixes.
• Risk reduces through consistency and early judgement.
• HRBPs feel supported and confident in handling highly complex matters.

Why this role matters

This role exists to continuously improve – more consistent, more practical and more commercially aligned.

It is about bringing specialist expertise into the business in a way that genuinely helps others – without adding noise or complexity, ensuring we continue to operate fairly, confidently and ‘in good company’.

Equal Opportunities

Ian Macleod Distillers is an equal‑opportunity employer. We consider only candidates who have the right to work in the UK and we do not offer sponsorship for this role.

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