People Partner - Commercial Services

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work–life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. We’re the first to say we do HR differently here. For a start, we work as business partners and specialists. Whether that’s making sure nearly 150,000 colleagues are paid on time, or shaping a strategy that helps us attract the right people, put them in the right place, and unlock their potential. This is a fast-moving business, and our policies and rewards evolve with it. That’s why we’re as flexible as we can be about where and when you work. We’re also flexible about your future. There’s always room to move up or across, if that’s what you want. We really value different perspectives, so there’s no one opinion, no single path, and yours matters.

Location

Hybrid - London Store Support Centre and Home (average is 2 days a week in the office; however, flexibility is required)

Why join us

As our People Partner, you will ensure the successful delivery of our people plans. Putting our colleagues first, you will work with the Head of People Partnering and Senior People Partners to help design, implement, and embed a wide variety of people change initiatives and cyclical activities.

You’ll join an exciting and varied commercial area at the heart of Sainsbury’s, partnering with teams across Product and Innovation, Commercial Programmes & Operations, Technical, and Future Stores. You’ll have the opportunity to lead a varied portfolio of projects and help shape the People activity through the next three-year cycle. You’ll build relationships with a broad range of stakeholders, bringing your own perspective and influencing how change is delivered across the business.

What You’ll Do

Your primary responsibility will be to ensure the successful delivery of people plans, including people development interventions, change and transformation projects, and cyclical people activity.

Collaborating with stakeholders and the People Centres of Expertise, you will design, implement, and embed cyclical activity within the people plan to create a great colleague and line manager experience. Working on a portfolio basis, you will prioritise and deploy your expertise to deliver value-adding activities for the division.

You will build trusted relationships with managers and provide proactive people-partnering support, helping them navigate people-related priorities and challenges within their teams. You will also take ownership of cyclical activities, including supporting talent reviews, performance activities, communications, and associated planning.

Additionally, you will lead business change initiatives, facilitate leadership development programmes and support talent reviews. You will take ownership of a varied portfolio of projects, developing plans and driving activity through from initial scoping to successful delivery.

With a data-driven approach, you will analyse functional people data to identify priorities and contribute to developing strategic people plans. Your success will be measured by your ability to address People challenges, improve colleague engagement, implement business change initiatives effectively, deliver against people metrics and contribute to a positive working environment.

Who You Are

You are an experienced HR professional with an understanding of the complexities of working within a fast-paced and commercially focused organisation. You have experience in delivering people plans, partnering with stakeholders and supporting positive change.

You take accountability for your work and can proactively take the initiative on a project, driving it forward from planning through to delivery. You are comfortable representing the People team in stakeholder conversations, bringing a clear perspective, constructively challenging where appropriate and helping the business reach effective decisions.

Your collaborative approach enables you to build effective relationships with stakeholders at different levels, find practical solutions to business challenges and support the seamless delivery of people activity. You can use data and insight to track progress, inform recommendations and make evidence-based decisions.

Agile and open to learning, you can adapt your approach as priorities change and work effectively across a varied portfolio. You combine a sound foundation in HR practice with a proactive and commercially focused approach, enabling you to deliver positive outcomes for colleagues and the wider business.

Essential Criteria

• Evidenced experience of partnering with managers or business stakeholders to understand people-related needs and deliver practical, commercially relevant solutions.
• Proven experience of taking ownership of a people initiative, project or programme of activity from initial planning through to implementation and review.
• Working knowledge of core HR practices, such as employee relations, performance management, talent management and organisational change.
• Evidenced ability to build effective working relationships and communicate confidently with stakeholders at different levels, including presenting information, constructively challenging and influencing decisions, alongside the ability to organise and prioritise a varied workload within a People and Commercially driven environment.
  
  

Please note, this vacancy may close early if we receive significant interest

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new — whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 10% of salary, depending on how we perform.

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance and you can buy up to an additional week's holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.

Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).