Senior HR Advisor (Hatcham College)

We are looking for a Senior HR Advisor will work across the two Hatcham College sites to deliver effective, best practice HR across key operational areas, including recruitment, onboarding and induction, terms and conditions of service, sickness absence management and employee relations issues. You will work in conjunction with the Senior Leadership Team at Hatcham College and relevant line managers and will be supported by an HR apprentice. 

The successful candidate will have experience of working within an educational setting and providing advice on employee relations, terms and conditions and contract issues. They will be confident using HR information systems and have a sound knowledge of employment law. CIPD qualified or significantly working towards one is important, as is strong English and maths skills. They will be required to manage an HR apprentice, to support their development and supervise completion of any delegated tasks.

Reporting

This role will report into the Senior HR Business Partner.

Support

Our staff are important to us. We know that without great staff, our children will not be as successful. Therefore, professional learning is key to our success. We are fortunate to have a wide range of internal and external course facilitators, with a wide range of courses and CPD opportunities for all staff. We are particularly focusing on the development of our support staff; you will be encouraged and supported to:

•Engage in relevant externally accredited programmes and apprenticeships

•Attend appropriate training and development opportunities and keep up to date with current educational developments and legislation affecting Initial Teacher Training and development of educational practitioners and leaders

•Reciprocally share expertise and skills with others in the Trust and outside the Trust, to ensure best practice, consistency in business support and ongoing improvement

Key responsibilities

Recruitment & onboarding

• Manage the administration of recruitment exercises which will include; working with managers to understand their staffing requirements, designing effective job advertisements and job descriptions ensuring that they comply with best practice, placing advertisements, generating letters to applicants, and preparing short listing packs, interview schedules, interview questions and tasks. 

•Work collaboratively with the HR Apprentice to prepare standard letters of appointment, contracts, ensuring that relevant right to work documentation, Occupational Health and ensure that all required pre-employment checks are undertaken in a timely manner, immediately alerting the Director of People to any issues with checks received or any outstanding pre-employment checks prior to the employee’s date of commencement

•Produce HR letters and ensuring that all communication is consistent, accurate and professional.

•Maintain the Single Central Register (SCR) for staff.

•Work with managers and the professional development team to ensure that all new staff receive a high-quality induction.

Data management

•Monitor the sick leave absence records, annual leave records, end of probationary periods and annual appraisal dates to advise managers as necessary and ensure that processes are in place for their correct storage and maintenance.

•Responsibility as a primary user to ensure the HR Information System (Access People) is accurate.

•Assist in the provision of HR management information and analytics

Payroll

•Maintain oversight of monthly payroll changes, ensuring pay affecting changes are entered accurately, in line with College deadlines.

•Assist with salary, benefit and pension calculations and queries, working closely with the Payroll Manager to ensure accurate payroll. 

•Check the schools’ monthly Payroll submissions.

Staff voice

•Carry out exit and induction interviews with incoming and outgoing staff.  

Employee Relations

•To assist with the review and development of employment policies and procedures, to ensure the College has robust policies and procedures in place which comply with current employment legislation.

•With support from the Senior HR Business Partner, communicate key HR policy changes, providing briefing sessions for staff as required.

•To support the development of people management skills within the College by supporting and coaching managers and staff to ensure a transfer of knowledge, as well as developing and implementing specific HR training across the organisation.

•Confidently advise line managers and staff members, using appropriate methods of communication tailored to the audience, answering straightforward questions or researching employment law, interpreting procedures to answer more complex questions.

•To support managers with change management processes, including the development of consultation documents.

•Responding to employee issues and questions, providing feedback to managers to ensure appropriate action is taken where necessary.

•To oversee investigations and support managers through disciplinary and grievance processes, including taking minutes of formal meetings, and ensuring decisions are consistent with best practice, legislation, College culture and policy.

•To advise on the capability procedure and communication around performance issues. To support team building and informal approaches such as mediation and conflict management for managers and staff.

•To advise managers on absence - management (including maternity, paternity and shared parental leave) and to oversee ill health cases and processes, including writing management referrals to Occupational Health and providing guidance on reasonable adjustments and ill health retirement.

•To manage specific projects and ongoing HR workstreams, as directed by the Director of People

Additional specific responsibilities:

•Attend appropriate training on employment law, HR policies and procedures, and their effective implementation at departmental level.

•Support the leadership team to manage the wellbeing of all staff, to ensure that they are supported in accordance with policies and procedures.

•Contribute to and maintain staff toolkits in relation to key areas for Managers to utilise (such as capability, absence etc).

•Support and maintain effective working relationships with Trade Unions and Professional Associations through effective and productive consultation processes.

•Keep an up-to-date professional development and knowledge to ensure the latest law, guidance and practice is implemented for current policy and practice. 

•Undertake any other duties as directed including working at different locations in order to provide business continuity and to enable the HR team as a whole to fulfil Trust needs.  

•Other duties and responsibilities of an equivalent nature are undertaken, as may be determined by the post holder's supervisor from time to time, in consultation with the post holder.  

Information to applicants:

We involve our staff in every part of the recruitment process, and therefore our interview dates are set. Please ensure that you are able to make the interview date as stated in the candidate application pack when submitting your application.

We expect your supporting statement to address how your knowledge, skills and behaviours meet the person criteria.