Senior HR Advisor
- Slough, Berkshire
- £40,000-45,000 per year
- Permanent
- Full-time
- Partner with operational managers and senior leaders to design and execute people strategies aligned with the contract's service delivery goals.
- Understand the contractual, commercial, and regulatory context to ensure HR interventions drive operational success.
- Serve as a trusted advisor to contract leadership, contributing to strategic planning, workforce optimisation, and risk mitigation.
- Employee Relations & Policy Compliance
- Lead complex and high-risk employee relations cases, including investigations, disciplinary actions, grievances, capability, and absence management.
- Ensure consistent and legally compliant application of HR policies across all contract locations.
- Act as the first point of contact for operational teams on HR policy interpretation, offering pragmatic and commercially sensitive advice.
- Workforce Planning & Talent Management
- Collaborate with managers on workforce planning, forecasting, and succession planning to ensure critical roles are covered.
- Partner with recruitment teams to attract and retain skilled talent, supporting hard-to-fill roles and local employment priorities.
- Promote internal progression and coordinate development pathways for operational and supervisory staff.
- Performance Management & Capability Building
- Drive the performance review and appraisal processes across the contract, ensuring alignment with KPIs and service targets.
- Identify training needs and partner with L&D teams to build capability in leadership, compliance, and technical excellence.
- Coach managers on team development, difficult conversations, and day-to-day people management.
- Change & Transformation
- Support or lead HR workstreams during organisational change projects, including TUPE transfers, restructures, and redundancy processes.
- Ensure all change initiatives are supported by clear communication, documentation, and support frameworks.
- Champion change management best practices and cultural alignment during contract mobilisation or evolution.
- Employee Engagement & Culture
- Design and deliver engagement initiatives aligned with the operational reality of the contract.
- Act as a culture champion, ensuring contract-wide values and behaviours are upheld and integrated into HR processes.
- Conduct pulse surveys, focus groups, and exit interviews to identify areas for improvement and action planning.
- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
- Promote inclusive hiring, development, and progression practices across field and office-based staff.
- Ensure compliance with equality legislation and support managers in ensuring a respectful and inclusive workplace.
- Collaborate with central HR to drive wider DEI goals across the business and contract.
- HR Data, Analytics & Reporting
- Leverage people data, dashboards, and workforce metrics to drive evidence-based decisions.
- Monitor trends in absenteeism, attrition, performance, and engagement; make proactive recommendations to leaders.
- Prepare regular and ad-hoc HR reports for internal stakeholders and client reviews as required.
- Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement
- Work closely with wider support functions (Payroll, L&D, Recruitment, Occupational Health, Legal) to ensure cohesive HR delivery.
- Partner with employee representatives or unions (if applicable) to maintain productive working relationships.
- Represent HR at contract governance meetings, audits, and reviews with Thames Water stakeholders where required.
- Be aware of all Group policies and your responsibilities towards them
- Any other reasonable ad-hoc duties, tasks or projects as requested by management
- Have a minimum of 2 years HR Advisor experience
- Be able to explore, and effectively mitigate risks with the confidence to identify when escalation to the Lead HRBP & Group HR Director may be required
- Have experience in delivering on HR Projects and working to tight deadlines
- Have great interpersonal skills to create relationships within the People team, with all People Managers across the contract
- Have the ability to deal with people at different levels
- Have excellent knowledge of both Microsoft 365
- Have solid communication skills (both written and verbal)
- Be resourceful and proactive
- Be able to multi-task, prioritise, work under pressure and on own initiative
- Be CIPD accredited (not essential but advantageous)
- Ideally be experienced working in a fast paced environment
- Preferably have strong influencing skills and a passion for embedding our core values