Job description
At McLaren Racing, we’re not just here to try to take the chequered flag. We’re here to excite our fans, inspire our people and deliver for our partners. And we’re also committed to evolving our sport, our industry, and our technology, too.
Role Purpose
The Lead, People Partner – Business Performance & WEC will support the continued delivery of a progressive people agenda into McLaren Racing’s shared service functions, including Finance, IT, PMO and People & Sustainability, while building our team and operating model for entry to the World Endurance Championship.
You will collaboratively craft the People Strategy with your senior leaders to help elevate our people partnering to the next level. You will be creating an environment where winning becomes inevitable, directly supporting and enhancing the performance and productivity of our teams, translating into both on and off track results.
Role Dimensions:
You’ll be collaborating widely across the People team. You’ll quickly discover it’s a pro-active team that thrives on working at pace, with agility and delivering meaningful change for McLaren Racing. Most of all we support each other and roll our sleeves up when it matters.
Reporting to the People Director, the Lead, People Partner will have one direct report and the shared support of a People Coordinator. You’ll be the first point of call for the Business Performance and WEC leadership team and managers, so will need to be comfortable operating at a strategic and operational level of business partnering.
As a commercial and business-oriented HR practitioner, you will foster unshakeable relationships through a strong understanding of the team’s operations and challenges and delivering no-nonsense, high-impact, agile solutions.
There will be a requirement to be flexible on working hours/days in the office as People Team presence is key for good working relationships and collaboration with the team that we support when they are travelling or at the McLaren Technology Centre. It is envisaged you would work Monday to Friday (3-4 days on site and 1-2 days WFH), demand dependent and ensuring cover on site at all times.
Principal Accountabilities
Deliver the People Plan
1. Front up the delivery of the People strategy within the Business Performance and WEC Teams, becoming the main point of contact for the leaders and People Director for all strategic and operational people matters.
2. Respond and adapt to changing circumstances, contribute to the development of solutions to ensure they are fit for purpose within Business Performance and WEC.
Business Partnering at a Senior level
3. Partner all senior leaders across your function, building strong relationships and knowledge of your stakeholder group to be a true partner. Work alongside the leadership to pro-actively deliver a people strategy and problem solve challenges that face the leadership team, as a subject matter expert in the People area.
4. Build trust-based relationships with the leadership team, fostering close partnerships that get you ‘inside the tent’ and able to offer close quarter support.
5. Anticipate future workforce demands before leaders even know they need something and proactively translate into high-impact solutions.
6. Become a well-versed expert with a high level of technical understanding of the client group, building credibility and enabling knowledge/insight-based proactive recommendations to be made.
7. Own and manage tactical matters, using all available resources across the People team to deal with these appropriately, or helping managers deal directly.
8. Apply people analytics through data-driven conversations and initiatives to deliver against the people strategy.
9. Ensure the right levels of support are given below the Leadership Team by you and with Advisor and Coordinator resources to hand.
Operational HR Management
10. Lead and oversee ER issues with the support of the People Advisor, ensuring managers are equipped to deal with them effectively and compliantly ensuring reliable and trusted employment law advice is given. Escalating to People Director where required.
11. Partner with the finance team to ensure a good understanding of local budgets, sporting regulations and cost-cap compliance rules.
12. Support the strategic, cyclical and day to day reward activities such as payroll checking, annual salary and bonus review process, job sizing etc.
13. Proactively gauge employee engagement, facilitate our regular engagement survey process and action planning, and work with the broader People team to provide solutions as required.
14. Work collaboratively with the recruitment team and hiring managers supporting relevant recruitment campaigns, helping to screen, attending interviews, role spec reviews, ensuring offers are made in a smooth and timely way.
15. Manage onboarding of new starters, ensuring managers have what they need for day one, working collaboratively with the People Coordinators and Advisors to ensure a great candidate experience.
16. Lead on the Performance Management process, ensuring managers and employees understand what is expected and when as well as coaching and supporting those who need it.
17. Utilise relevant data to support people and business plan implementation, spot trends and assist with decision making.
Organisational design and change management
18. Work with members of the Exec, Senior Leaders, and People Director to review the organisational design of their teams to ensure they remain commercially and performance focused, strategic, efficient, agile, and productive both short and longer term.
19. Lead on the redesign of roles, teams, or functions in line with identified needs using strong org design disciplines to maximise the effectiveness of structural changes.
20. Apply best practice change management discipline to the delivery and implementation of changes minimising disruption and supporting any people impacted with dignity and respect.
Workforce planning and talent management
21. Understand the various departments of Business Performances’ ambitions and plans. Use this insight to be inquisitive as to mid and long-term people requirements.
22. Own the annual formal and informal talent and succession management processes for your function, making this a live and ongoing conversation, not a paper activity, that has tangible outputs by way of retention, promotion and minimising risk, ensuring succession is well thought out and planned ahead.
23. In conjunction with the Talent Team, understand and develop workforce plans that map out role and capability need over time and required resource levels. Ensure development and growth of our people by way of effective learning and development, individual performance development and succession plans.
24. Work with the Talent Team to help build talent attraction strategies that consider short- and long-term needs, thinking creatively about how future needs can start to be addressed immediately (grads, apprentices, internal talent fast tracking).
Effective management of employee relations
25. Maintain strong employee relations across the functions through the pragmatic engagement of managers and team leaders to fulfil their legal obligations effectively and a positive employee experience.
26. Use effective communications as a vehicle to maintain strong relations with employees, particularly where change is concerned.
27. Actively engage with leaders to support development of a working environment that is conducive to safe practices and colleague welfare.
28. Support development and delivery of an effective diversity and inclusion agenda with the Employee Experience & Talent Team that promotes a positive workplace that is broad and inclusive in its make-up.
Stakeholder Management
29. Promote a service mentality and partnership approach to developing strong and effective working relationships with key internal stakeholders to ensure their appropriate engagement and involvement.
30. Confidently influence key stakeholders to gain buy-in and support to new ways of working, alternative solutions and key projects.
31. Seamlessly act as the conduit between Business Performance and WEC Leadership and the People & Culture team to ensure successful implementation of initiatives which are fit for purpose and land well.
Communication
32. Strong and professional communication across multiple stakeholder groups and channels with the ability to present and deliver compelling messages with authenticity and credibility.
33. Work with internal comms to support the development and execution of appropriate communications campaigns to engage with audiences on the employee experience offer to ensure full engagement and understanding.
Job requirements
Knowledge, Skills and Experience:
34. Wide ranging knowledge of value-creating generalist human resources at senior leader level, ideally within a tech or engineering based industry or high-performance sporting organisation.
35. Previous experience in particular with culture and engagement, change management, organisational design, and talent & succession planning.
36. Demonstrable experience of contributing to people strategy development, translation into pragmatic delivery plans and implementation through to conclusion.
37. Ability to deliver high impact services and flex style in a fast paced and fluid working environment, bringing clarity and structure where appropriate.
38. Strong communicator, able to influence senior leaders with a “how to”/” yes, if” rather than a “no” mentality
39. Experience of working with high performing teams in a fast-paced environment, comfortable with working independently, without close support or oversight.
40. Ability to operate ‘in the grey’ and manage and plan own workload within a dynamic and time constrained environment.
41. A focus on data-driven decision making, and an eye for utilising technology for insight and continuous improvement.
42. Proficient to at least intermediate level in Excel, Word, PowerPoint.
43. Previous experience working with an HRIS and related employee platforms desirable.
44. CIPD Level 5 or 7 qualified, or equivalent experience.
Personal Attributes
45. Winning Mindset – Always working and striving for the best, pushing the boundaries to world championship material on everything we do.
46. Problem solving – able to operate effectively with ambiguity, adopting an inquisitive style that understands the ‘why’ to determine the ‘how’ and applies extensive knowledge to develop creative solutions and workarounds for the client.
47. Results – someone who is driven; who comes with an outstanding work ethic and expects the best from him or herself and people around them.
48. Credible - considered credible and has gravitas, acting as a role model for the McLaren values.
49. Challenges – challenges others to strive for more, both in innovation and meeting stakeholder needs.
50. Ownership - demonstrates behaviours that support a high-performance culture within and across teams.
51. Collaboration – engages in partnerships, networks and alliances to support long term success and engages in partnerships for decision making to support the best interests of the business.
52. Driven – a track record of getting things done.
53. Role Model – Is a role model and champions best practice in diversity and inclusion.
What can McLaren offer?
We constantly strive to be better tomorrow than we are today. Our ambition is to be the most pioneering and exhilarating racing team in the world, and our collective task is to set the standards for high performance in sport. We show up every day with energy and enthusiasm, ready to play our part.
We encourage and support diversity, equity and inclusion. We will actively promote a culture that values difference and eliminates discrimination in our workplace.
McLaren Racing is based at the iconic McLaren Technology Centre (MTC) near Woking. Here at McLaren, we offer hybrid working with 3 days a week based in the MTC.
Our state of the art, sustainable campus offers many facilities including a gym, restaurant and indoor and outdoor break-out areas, as well as direct access to park and common land. The MTC is connected to Woking mainline station via regular shuttle buses, from which London Waterloo is a 30 minute train ride.
We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including private healthcare, car schemes, life insurance and generous pension contributions.