Manager hr & operations

Join One of the UK's Fastest Growing Supported Living Providers

Isabella's Homes is an award-winning specialist supported living provider supporting adults with mental health needs, learning disabilities, autism, acquired brain injuries, and other complex needs across the West Midlands and South East.

Following significant growth, we are seeking an experienced and ambitious HR Manager to lead our people function and help drive the next stage of our development.

This is not a traditional HR role. We need a confident leader who can manage complex employee relations, maintain regulatory compliance, support operational managers, and ensure the organisation remains inspection‑ready at all times.

Reporting directly to the Operations Manager, you will play a key role in shaping our workforce strategy and supporting our vision of becoming one of the UK's leading supported living providers.

Main duties of the job

The Role

You will be responsible for leading and developing the HR function across a workforce of over 130+ employees operating across multiple locations.

Key responsibilities include:

• Leading the HR department and supporting HR team members.
• Providing expert advice and guidance on employment law and HR best practice.
• Managing disciplinary, grievance, capability, absence management, and performance management processes.
• Leading complex investigations and employee relations cases.
• Ensuring compliance with employment legislation and regulatory requirements.
• Overseeing safer recruitment processes including DBS checks, references, right‑to‑work checks, and onboarding.
• Managing sponsorship licence compliance and supporting international recruitment.
• Developing, reviewing, and implementing HR policies and procedures.
• Producing HR reports, workforce metrics, and management information.
• Supporting CQC inspections, quality assurance reviews, local authority audits, and commissioner visits.
• Working closely with managers to improve leadership capability and people management practices.
• Supporting service mobilisation, organisational growth, restructures, and TUPE processes where required.
• Leading workforce engagement, wellbeing, and retention initiatives.
• Ensuring training compliance and workforce development plans are maintained.

About us

What Success Looks Like

Within your first 12 months, you will:

• Maintain inspection‑ready HR compliance across all services.
• Strengthen HR governance and workforce compliance.
• Improve recruitment, retention, and employee engagement.
• Develop managers to confidently manage people issues.
• Enhance HR systems, reporting, and workforce planning.
• Support the continued growth and expansion of Isabella's Homes.

Job responsibilities

This is a leadership role across our operational areas. The successful candidate will be expected to build strong relationships with managers, maintain high standards of compliance, and ensure the organisation remains inspection‑ready at all times.

We are particularly interested in candidates with experience within adult social care, healthcare, supported living, domiciliary care, NHS, housing, or other highly regulated sectors.

Candidates without experience managing complex employee relations cases, compliance, audits, and workforce governance within regulated environments may not be shortlisted.

Qualifications

• CIPD Level 5 or above.
• Experience within adult social care, supported living, domiciliary care, healthcare, housing, or NHS settings.
• Experience supporting CQC inspections or other regulatory audits.
• Experience managing sponsorship licences and overseas recruitment.
• Experience supporting a workforce of 100+ employees across multiple sites.
• Experience implementing HR systems and process improvements.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.