Employee Relations Lead (12 month FTC)

Ideas | People | Trust

We’re BDO. An accountancy and business advisory firm, providing the advice and solutions entrepreneurial organisations need to navigate today’s changing world. 

We work with the companies that are Britain’s economic engine – ambitious, entrepreneurially-spirited and high growth businesses that fuel the economy - and directly advise the owners and management teams that lead them. 

We’ll broaden your horizons 

Our greatest asset is our people, so our HR team focus on ensuring we are all reaching our potential. They use their specialist expertise to help us attract great talent, enable our employees to succeed and inspire a unified culture of development across our firm. By playing a role in the recruitment and management of our people, they help change lives and influence the future of BDO. Join a driven and passionate team where you can be yourself, while also helping your colleagues to achieve their ambitions. 

We’ll help you succeed 

Leading organisations trust us because of the quality of our advice. That quality grows from a thorough understanding of their business, and that understanding comes from working closely with them and building long-lasting relationships.

You’ll be someone who is both comfortable working proactively and managing your own tasks, as well as confident collaborating with others and communicating regularly with senior managers, directors, and BDO’s partners to help businesses effectively. You’ll be encouraged to identify and draw attention to opportunities for enhancing our delivery and providing additional services to organisations we work with. 

As the Employee Relations (ER) Lead, you will oversee the entire ER function at BDO, ensuring the delivery of high-quality ER services across the firm. You will lead a team of 13 ER professionals, including the Senior ER Manager, and work closely with senior leadership and Partners to support the business effectively. Your role will involve strategic planning, provide commercial guidance and support to the firm on risk mitigation, compliance, thought leadership on ER policy implementation ensuring the firm is proactive, maintaining or implementing ahead of trends alongside ownership of overall delivery of ER team activities.

You’ll also:

Strategic Leadership:

• Develop and implement the ER strategy in alignment with the firm's overall HR and business objectives.
• Lead the ER team, providing direction, support, and development opportunities to ensure high performance.
• Oversee complex case management/risk decisions and provide commercial guidance on high-risk ER issues.
• Ensure the ER team delivers timely and pragmatic advice and guidance to the business, ensuring realistic KPI’s are set and objectives are clear.
• Ensure the team clearly understands their roles and responsibilities and takes ownership of their actions.

Legislation, Policy and Compliance:

• Take full ownership of compliance with the firm’s ER allocated ISQM risks and processes including relevant and timely inputs on Rhiza.
• Oversee the team’s development and maintenance of ER policies and procedures, ensuring they are legally compliant and reflect best practices.
• Provide support and guidance to the Senior ER Manager in their responsibility for ensuring high quality, robust governance of ER processes and procedures, consulting with stakeholders as needed and reviewing as necessary.
• Ensure the team provide timely and quality responses to all Tribunal claims and ACAS Early Conciliation by ensuring appropriate consultation with lawyers and decision making escalation to Senior ER Manager and ER lead.
• Act as the final escalation point for ER team complex queries and risk-based decisions, being accountable for overall technical decision making within the team.

Collaboration and Stakeholder Management:

• Build strong, credible relationships, including with the Head of People, members of the People Culture Exec, the Firm’s LT, Partners, HRLT and HR Generalist team acting as a trusted advisor on complex ER matters, providing strategic guidance on risks impacting the firm.  Develop and apply commercial solutions to resolve business and employee issues.
• Work closely with senior members of internal Ethics, Risk and Legal on improving firm’s culture and governance implementation, developing and maintaining measures to mitigate risk to the firm.
• Collaborate with the HR team and other departments to support firmwide and HR strategic projects.
• Take ownership of external relationships including external legal advisors and occupational health, to ensure strong commercial relationships to bring knowledge and best practices into the firm.

Data and Analytics:

• Regularly review key themes and trends identified by the ER Senior Manager and produce data and analytics alongside providing pro-active solutions and recommendations to leadership on complex issues.
• Maintain and establish where relevant, key metrics to measure the effectiveness of the ER team and provide reports to key stakeholders on trends and areas for improvement and focus.
• Support the Senior ER Manager and ER Managers to ensure accurate data capture in the case management system to meet internal and regulatory reporting requirements.

Training and Development:

• Coach and develop the ER Senior Manager and ER team where required, fostering a supportive and developmental culture.
• Identify ER team training needs and facilitate workshops or training sessions to ensure that the ER team has the necessary skills, knowledge, and behaviours to deliver the best service to the firm. Support the ER Senior Manager in implementing team-building events and a cohesive working environment.
• Develop and deliver training to business stakeholders on ER matters where relevant.

You’ll be someone with:

• Substantial experience of managing complex Employee Relations cases at senior level.
• Strong technical and current knowledge of employment law and best practice trends.
• Proven experience in building, developing, and leading a team.
• High emotional intelligence and a natural leader with a calm, patient, pragmatic and balanced approach to sensitive matters.
• Confident in creating and interpreting ER-related data, producing analysis, and presenting recommendations to leadership.
• Experience in developing continuous process improvement and encouraging new ways of working.
• Fully accountable for risk based decision-making in complex ER case management, including Employment Tribunals and TUPE.
• Gravitas to influence all seniority stakeholders with strong communication and influencing skills.
• Experience in a professional services and/or regulated environment is advantageous.
• Experience using Navex (Ethics point) as a case management system would also be desirable.

You’ll be able to be yourself; we’ll recognise and value you for who you are and celebrate and reward your contributions to the business. We’re committed to agile working, and we offer every colleague the opportunity to work in ways that suit you, your teams, and the task at hand.

At BDO, we’ll help you achieve your personal goals and career ambitions, and we have programmes, resources, and frameworks that provide clarity and structure around career development.

We’re in it together

Mutual support and respect is one of BDO’s core values and we’re proud of our distinctive, people-centred culture. From informal success conversations to formal mentoring and coaching, we’ll support you at every stage in your career, whatever your personal and professional needs.

Our agile working framework helps us stay connected, bringing teams together where and when it counts so they can share ideas and help one another. At BDO, you’ll always have access to the people and resources you need to do your best work.

We know that collaboration is the key to creating value for the companies we work with and satisfying experiences for our colleagues, so we’ve invested in state-of-the-art collaboration spaces in our offices. BDO’s people represent a wealth of knowledge and expertise, and we’ll encourage you to build your network, work alongside others, and share your skills and experiences. With a range of multidisciplinary events and dedicated resources, you’ll never stop learning at BDO.

We’re looking forward to the future 

At BDO, we help entrepreneurial businesses to succeed, fuelling the UK economy. Our success is powered by our people, which is why we’re always finding new ways to invest in you. Across the UK thousands of unique minds continue to come together to help companies we work with to achieve their ambitions

We’ve got a clear purpose, and we’re confident in our future, because we’re adapting and evolving to build on our strengths, ensuring we continue to find the right combination of global reach, integrity and expertise. We shape the future together with openness and clarity, because we believe in empowering people to think creatively about how we can do things better. 

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