The Vacancy
We’re looking for a highly experienced Senior Employee Relations Manager with deep industrial relations expertise to lead our ER function and ensure the organisation is fully equipped to operate effectively in a unionised environment.
This role is critical in shaping our approach to trade union engagement, collective consultation and employee representation, while also providing expert, commercially grounded advice across complex ER matters and organisational change.
Reporting to the People Director, you will act as our senior IR and ER lead, setting the tone for constructive union relationships, ensuring the ER team is confident and capable in a unionised setting and overseeing all complex casework, TUPE activity and change programmes.
This is a senior, influential role working closely with leaders across the business.
What you’ll be doing
Industrial Relations Leadership
1. Leading our approach to working within a unionised environment, ensuring the business and ER team are confident, prepared and aligned
2. Building and maintaining strong, constructive relationships with recognised trade unions and employee representative bodies
3. Acting as the senior People representative in formal union meetings, negotiations and collective consultation
4. Providing strategic advice to senior leaders on union engagement, industrial relations risks and appropriate consultation frameworks
Leading Complex Employee Relations
5. Owning and overseeing complex ER cases including disciplinaries, grievances, performance, absence, investigations and disputes
6. Ensuring outcomes are consistent, fair, legally robust and aligned with our IR commitments
7. Coaching leaders and the ER team to manage cases confidently in a unionised context
TUPE and Organisational Change
8. Acting as the organisation’s TUPE subject matter expert on inbound and outbound transfers
9. Leading due diligence, information and consultation processes, employee transitions and documentation
10. Partnering with senior stakeholders on restructures, redundancies and change programmes, ensuring all consultation obligations are met and IR considerations are fully factored in
Leading and developing the ER team
11. Managing and developing HR Advisors, embedding high standards of case management, judgment and decision‑making
12. Ensuring the team is fully equipped to operate in a unionised environment, with strong coaching, guidance and continuous improvement
13. Driving quality assurance, consistency and capability building across the ER function
Policy, governance and risk
14. Owning ER policies and procedures, ensuring they remain up to date, relevant and legally compliant
15. Maintaining clear ER governance and risk frameworks, with particular focus on IR implications and legal obligations
16. Advising the business on employment law, collective consultation requirements and industrial relations risks
What we’re looking for
Experience and expertise
17. Extensive experience managing complex ER casework in a medium or large organisation
18. Significant experience operating in a unionised environment, with a strong track record of constructive union engagement
19. Proven end‑to‑end TUPE experience
20. Experience supporting restructures, consultations and organisational change
21. Experience managing or mentoring HR Advisors or ER specialists
Knowledge and qualifications
22. Strong, up‑to‑date knowledge of UK employment legislation and case law
23. Deep understanding of TUPE, collective consultation and industrial relations frameworks
24. CIPD Level 5 essential (Level 7 desirable)
Skills and personal qualities
25. Confident, calm and credible with senior stakeholders and union representatives
26. Excellent judgment, resilience and integrity
27. Strong investigation, report writing and problem‑solving skills
28. Collaborative, coaching‑led leadership style with a proactive, solutions‑focused approach
Why join us?
29. Non-contractual 10% annual bonus based on company and personal performance
30. 25 days annual leave, increasing to 30 with service + bank holidays + birthday off
31. Company sick pay (6 months full pay, then SSP)
32. Enhanced maternity & paternity pay
33. Life assurance x4 salary
34. Pension – employer matched up to 7%
35. Private Medical Insurance
36. 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme
37. Retail discounts platform
38. Electric Vehicle Salary Sacrifice Scheme
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