Senior People and Culture Lead (12-month Maternity Cover)

Job Introduction

Please note: We’re sharing this opportunity across a number of job boards and in different locations to reach as many potential applicants as possible. However, this is one single position – so wherever you see it, it’s the same great role.

At HCRG Care Group, we believe our people are at the heart of delivering excellent care and driving sustainable change. We’re proud to deliver vital health and care services across the country, and we’re looking for two exceptional Senior People & Culture Leads to join us at a pivotal time.

This opportunity is offered as a 12-month maternity cover, making it ideal for an experienced People & Culture professional who enjoys stepping into complex environments, making an immediate impact, and delivering meaningful change. You will work closely with our Regional Directors - building trusted partnerships, embedding recent transformation programmes, and helping managers develop the skills and confidence they need to deliver consistently high-performing services.

No two days will look the same. One week you might be in Surrey, supporting leaders in our prison healthcare services; the next in Essex, helping managers make the link between absence management, agency use, and service performance. You’ll also play a key role in shaping the people strategy for our sexual health services, including the integration of SH24.

A

lthough the role is remote-based, it will require regular travel and visibility across the regions. You’ll be the kind of person who thrives on variety, who enjoys being out in services, and who knows that real cultural change happens when leaders are supported, present, and accountable.

This is not about policy writing or transactional HR. It’s about influence, coaching, and impact. You’ll create people plans tailored to each region, use data and insights to shape decision-making, and most importantly, ensure that change sticks long after the project team has moved on.

If you are a seasoned HR professional with the credibility to influence senior leaders, the resilience to navigate complex environments, and the drive to make a tangible difference, then this is your opportunity to join us and leave a lasting mark on colleagues, services, and communities.

Main Responsibility

• Act as a strategic partner to Regional Directors, building trusted relationships and ensuring people strategies directly support operational and service delivery goals.
• Develop and deliver tailored people plans for each region, aligned with organisational strategy, KPIs, and local priorities.

Promote equality, diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing across all people practices, creating environments where colleagues feel supported, engaged, and able to thrive.

Contribute to organisational performance by tracking ROI on people initiatives, ensuring people practices add value to both colleagues and service delivery.

The Ideal Candidate

We’re looking for someone who can bring both credibility and pragmatism - a trusted partner who can balance strategic thinking with a hands-on approach to building capability and embedding change.

You will be:

• An experienced Senior HR Business Partner / OD leader with a proven track record of partnering senior stakeholders to deliver people strategies that drive performance and culture.
• CIPD Level 7 qualified (or equivalent experience), with strong knowledge of employment legislation, organisational development, and workforce planning.
• Skilled in embedding change - not just delivering transformation projects, but ensuring changes are sustained through capability building, coaching, and cultural alignment.
• Highly confident in building manager and leadership capability, particularly around absence management, performance, engagement, and succession planning.

Adept at using people data and insights to influence decision-making, spot risks, and link people practices to service KPIs (e.g. absence rates, agency spend, staff survey outcomes).

A strong communicator and influencer, able to build trust quickly with Regional Directors and senior managers with very different leadership styles.

Comfortable with regular national travel and maintaining a visible presence across services - you’ll know that sometimes the most meaningful impact happens in team meetings, on-site with leaders, and in the moments where you can challenge and support face-to-face.

Commercially astute, with the ability to balance organisational goals, colleague wellbeing, and service user needs.

A values-driven leader who champions inclusion, wellbeing, and engagement, creating the conditions where people can thrive.

Resilient and adaptable, thriving in a complex and changing environment, and able to “connect the dots” across multiple services and priorities.

This is a fantastic role for someone who wants to go beyond traditional HR and truly shape culture, capability, and leadership in services that make a difference to communities across the UK.

Package Description

As a Senior People and Culture Lead, you’ll be part of our valued team at HCRG Care Group.

You will feel valued as a Senior People and Culture Lead within HCRG Care Group, receiving access to exclusive rewards and benefits including: 

• £55,000 - £60,000 with group pension
• Private medical insurance with fast access to the most used specialists including for musculoskeletal problems and for mental health support – at locations across the country
• Membership of My Reward Hub, giving you access to discounts on every day purchases like grocery shopping as well as cashback and voucher offers for treats for you and those special to you
• Access to your wages as you earn them to help cover life’s emergencies and avoid overdraft fees or high interest rates
• Online and face to face help with your mental and physical wellbeing – from healthy recipes and activity challenges through to post trauma support, legal, debt and life management help, as well career coaching and counselling
• Access to eLearning, bespoke career pathways and opportunities for continuing professional development through our ‘Outstanding’ learning and development team, The Learning Enterprise

An open, just culture where you’re encouraged to have and implement ideas which can help us deliver our purpose: changing lives through transforming health and care – backed up by at least £100,000 of ringfenced innovation funding each year

The pride of working for an organisation committed to the highest clinical and quality standards: with the majority of our rated services holding “good” or “outstanding” ratings from the Care Quality Commission

About The Company

We change lives by transforming health and care.

Established in 2006, we are one of the UK's leading independent providers of community health and care services, working with health and care commissioners and communities to transform services with a focus on experience, efficiency, and improved outcomes. We deliver and transform adult and children community health services, primary care services including urgent care, sexual health, dermatology and MSK services as well as adult social care and wellbeing services. Across England, we support communities of many millions and directly help more than half a million people each year - guided by our simple values: we care, we think, we do.

We're committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from a broad, diverse range of people who want to join our team. We’re a Disability Confident Committed company, so we work to provide facilities, work environment adjustments and technical solutions to be

as inclusive of everyone.

While it doesn’t happen often, sometimes a role is very popular, and we’ll need to close it earlier than the date we’ve shown here. If you’re keen to join our team, we’d love to hear from you so please apply as soon as you can.

As you’d expect, safeguarding and protecting the children, young people and vulnerable adults that we work with is of the utmost importance so we have policies and procedures in place to promote safeguarding and safer working practices and everyone who joins the team is subject to a safer recruitment process, including the disclosure of criminal records and vetting checks.

Finally, we need to let you know that the company you’ll work for is part of HCRG Care Group Holdings Limited and by applying for this job we’ll need to process and hold information about you. If you would like to know a little more about how we use your information, please see our website's privacy policy.

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