Overview
At Rick Stein Restaurants we are all about fresh seafood, warm service, and a genuine passion for people. From our kitchens to our front-of-house teams, we believe great learning creates great guest experiences.
We’re looking for an exceptional People Director to shape the culture, capability and future of our hospitality business — someone who understands that great guest experiences begin with engaged, empowered people.
This role is a part-time position - 2 days a week, based in Padstow with travel to other locations as required.
This is a rare opportunity for a senior people leader with a deep appreciation of hospitality, craft and service. You will bring proven experience operating at leadership level within multi-site, people-intensive environments, and a clear belief that culture, leadership and ownership are the true drivers of commercial success.
Responsibilities
* Strategically review and continuously evolve the end-to-end employee journey, from attraction and onboarding through to progression and retention.
* Ensure people processes are simple, consistent and fit for the realities of a multi-site hospitality environment.
* Oversee employee relations, ensuring legal compliance and best practice.
* Champion a modern, inclusive employee experience that reflects changing workforce expectations and ways of working.
* Partner with operational leaders to ensure the employee experience translate into confident, engaged frontline teams.
* Build and sustain a culture of empowerment, ownership and stewardship where people are trusted to make decisions and take responsibility.
* Embed clear leadership expectations, behaviours and rhythms that drive accountability and performance.
* Lead cultural change initiatives that support growth, evolution and continuous improvement.
* Act as a visible role model and trusted advisor to leaders, reinforcing value, through everyday actions and decisions.
* Leverage technology and modern people practices to support engagement, transparency and effective leadership.
* Design and lead a commercially aligned L&D strategy that develops confident, values-led and entrepreneurial hospitality leaders.
* Embed clear career pathways and capability frameworks across frontline, management and senior leadership roles.
* Champion coaching and mentoring as core leadership behaviours to build accountability, ownership and performance.
Experience and Skills
* Proven experience in a senior People / HR leadership role, ideally within hospitality, leisure, retail or another multi-site, customer-facing environment.
* Strong track record of designing and delivering Learning & Development strategies that build leadership capability and drive measurable business impact.
* Demonstrable experience of shaping and improving the end-to-end employee journey in fast-paced, operationally complex organisations.
* Deep understanding of how to build progressive, values-led cultures that empower people, encourage ownership and support high performance.
* Experience coaching and mentoring senior leaders and managers, with the credibility to challenge and influence at executive level.
* Confidence leading organisational change, cultural transformation and people-led initiatives in evolving or growing businesses.
* Strong commercial acumen, with the ability to link people strategy to operational outcomes such as engagement, retention and guest experience.
* Experience implementing and leveraging HR technology and digital learning tools to improve efficiency, insight and employee experience. Excellent communication and relationship-building skills, able to engage frontline teams and senior stakeholders with equal impact.
* High levels of personal integrity, resilience and judgement, with a calm, pragmatic approach to complex people matters.
Compensation
Compensation: Competitive salary
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