Employee Relations and Policy Advisor

We are seeking an experienced and proactive Employee Relations (ER) Advisor to play a key role in supporting our people managers and colleagues across the full colleague lifecycle. This is a varied role where you’ll offer expert advice, coaching, and tailored solutions on a wide range of people matters – from day-to-day queries to more complex cases.

You’ll be part of a collaborative national ER team, working together to deliver high-quality, consistent support across the business. The role may also involve providing in-person support where required by the needs of the business.

This role is a fixed-term contract (role can also be considered in Leeds)

Key Responsibilities

Working closely with management, colleagues and the relevant HR Business Partner to advise on a range of employee relations issues, including but not limited to:

Employee Relations

• Providing proactive, consistent and commercially focussed advice and coaching support to develop manager capability, drive a culture of high performance and encourage colleague engagement and well-being.
• Case management to drive the resolution of performance, probation, attendance, disciplinary and grievance issues, ranging from informal discussions, to formal investigations, formal hearings and appeal stages.
• Advising the business and relevant HR Business Partners on the design and end to end implementation of change programmes (e.g. TUPE and redundancies).
• Supporting managers to deal with, or when particularly sensitive sometimes directly manage, complex and long term absence cases.
• Involvement in resolving more complex queries (e.g. benefits, maternity, absence or policy related) which are escalated from the HR Operations Team
• Providing consistent and commercially focussed advice to line managers and colleagues in HR around Employee Relations issues.
• Advising managers and colleagues on the Firm’s HR policies and employment best practice as they apply to day to day management of colleagues.
• Providing guidance around the Flex Forward approach to working and managing the formal flexible working application process.
• Supporting the ER Lead and other HR colleagues in relevant project work and initiatives, for example involvement in ensuring ER policies are relevant for changing business needs.
• Analyse ER data to identify recurring trends and themes and derive insights that help shape relevant programmes and interventions.
• Keeping up to-date in changing employment law landscape and conducting ER training as part of the Learning & Development offering as necessary.
• Dealing with ad-hoc or regular reports, including appropriate analysis of information where required.

Policy Development and Implementation

• Keep up to date with current and future employment law changes.
• Develop, review, and update HR policies and procedures to reflect current legislation, best practices, and organisational needs.
• Ensure consistent application and understanding of HR policies across the organisation through clear documentation, advice and communication.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• A strong understanding of UK employment legislation and general Employee Relations principles and practices, preferably gained in a similar advisory role.
• Demonstrable experience of handling Employee Relations cases, either within a generalist or specialist role.
• A CIPD qualification, or part qualification, is desirable but not essential.
• Great communication skills, the ability to influence and engage colleagues and key stakeholders.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to translate employment legislation clearly and professionally
• Proactive and willing to take ownership of tasks and projects.
• Highly organised, with the ability to prioritise effectively and deal calmly with the pressure of deadlines and conflicting priorities.
• Team oriented, flexible and enthusiastic with a positive and committed approach.
• Reliable and able to work on own initiative, with good attention to detail and a high level of accuracy.
• A good level of computer literacy including use of Excel, PowerPoint and word is essential.
• Experience of HR Systems including Case Management systems would be desirable

About DAC Beachcroft

We are a leading international legal business with over 3,000 colleagues and a diverse range of capabilities. We are market leaders in insurance, health and real estate but with a full-service offering, including growing Financial Services and Tech capabilities. We represent a wide range of clients – from household names to government departments and NHS bodies. We act for nearly all of the top-20 UK and global insurers, we're market leaders in the provision of strategic, commercial and regulatory advice to providers and commissioners in the health sector, and in real estate we advise all of the UK’s top-five housebuilders.

We are a fast-growing international business with offices around the globe. In addition to our 11 UK offices, we also have offices in Bogota, Buenos Aires, Dublin, Lima, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Madrid, Mexico City, Milan, New York, Paris, Rome, Santiago de Chile, and Singapore plus a representative office in Miami and broad network of affiliations across the globe.

At DAC Beachcroft we are committed to and recognise the importance of equity, diversity and inclusion across the board, including and beyond the protected characteristics. We take decisions based solely on merit. We value, welcome and seek out people with different backgrounds and life experiences, perspectives, beliefs, ways of thinking and identities.

We are happy to talk flexible working with our Flex Forward scheme. We would encourage you to talk to us about our approach to flexible working during the hiring process if you would like to explore this further.

Note for Recruitment Agencies

DAC Beachcroft manages all vacancies via our in-house recruitment teams, prioritising direct sourcing and referrals. When external support is required, roles are released to selected agencies on our Preferred Supplier List (PSL).

Speculative CVs sent to any DAC Beachcroft employee without prior instruction from our recruitment teams (LLP and CSG) will not be accepted, and no fees will be payable.

For PSL queries, please contact: [email protected] or [email protected]