HR Business Partner

Reports to: Head of Business Partners

Location: Field based aligned with Ark’s South London region of schools (secondary and all-through)

Contract: Permanent

Pattern: Full Time (standard hours 9am – 5.30pm)

Closing date: 13/10/ 2023 at 10am

Interviews: w/c 16/10/2023

Salary: £53,000 to £60,000 (depending on experience)

About the role:

As People Business Partner for Ark’s South London region, you will deliver excellent stakeholder engagement to all of your region’s secondary and all-through schools. Ensuring the effective delivery of a proactive and efficient People service and ensuring that strategies are in place to balance the needs of individual academies whilst supporting the delivery of Ark’s strategic objectives.

You will join a high functioning and experienced Business Partner team as well as being expected to be a contributing member of the wider People team, bringing your professional knowledge and personal creativity to continuously improve the quality of the People service.

This role requires someone who is able to flex their management skills to work with a broad range of stakeholders and ensure a consistently high standard of service to the Ark schools in the South London region.

Key Responsibilities:

• Partner with the South London Regional Director to enable the effective development and implementation of People strategies, plans and practices
• Support your region on all key People processes, providing guidance, coaching and constructive challenge when appropriate
• Effectively engage, and work collaboratively with Central function leaders to positively influence the high performance and professional Central support services to your region
• Lead on local trade union consultations and negotiations
• Own, analyse, and report People data in ways that underpins best practice and effective people management and planning (including management intelligence and on which strategic decisions can be made)
• Where appropriate; design and deliver customised People training
• Support and/or lead project work in support of Ark’s plans and priorities
• Keep abreast of HR best practice, legislative changes and new developments to continuously develop and improve knowledge and skills and broaden the understanding of inter-relationships between the range of human resources activities and functions

Key Requirements:

• CIPD qualified (or equivalent)
• Strong experience working at a senior HR capacity including responsibilities for senior stakeholder management
• Up-to-date knowledge and understanding of HR best practice and a thorough understanding of the practical application of employment law
• Sound experience of managing and bringing to a successful conclusion complex ER matter within a Trade Union environment
• Ability to analyse and interpret complex information and prepare and deliver briefings and or presentations
• Drive and enthusiasm for delivering a quality HR service that consistently produces positive and business focused outcomes
• Ability to make sound judgements and assess potential problems at both strategic and operational level
• Ability to communicate in a fluent and adaptive manner; experience of successfully influencing opinion and generating support
• Able to use discretion intelligently; resourceful and solution-oriented
• Able to manage conflicting priorities and achieve stretching objectives
• Experience of working in partnership and collaboration; able to work effectively with a broad range of stakeholders and partners
• Ability to be creative and analytical to develop flexible creative solutions to complex HR issues

View the full job description and person specification here

About Ark

We’re an international charity, transforming lives through education. We exist to give every young person, regardless of their background, a great education and real choices in life. In the UK, we’re a network of 39 schools, educating around 28,500 pupils in areas where we can make the biggest difference and we’re recognised as one of the highest achieving academy groups in the country. We want to change the lives of children everywhere, not just in our own schools. So, we create and incubate Ventures designed not only to help pupils in Ark schools, but also to improve education systems.

You’ll be joining a group of like-minded, ambitious individuals who work collaboratively and are all committed to our core mission, that every child has the potential to succeed. Having just celebrated our 20^th anniversary, we are shaping our goals for the next 20 and there has never been a more exciting time to join us.

Benefits

• 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays, rising with each year of service up to 30 days after 3-years’ service. This entitlement is pro rata for part time employees. This entitlement excludes bank holidays
• Full office closure between Christmas and New Year
• Hybrid working, with currently two days a week in our state-of-the-art office in West London working alongside colleagues
• Regular social events, monthly free breakfast, and daily fruit
• A flexible approach to working with understanding and consideration for work life balance and personal commitments
• As an Ark employee, you will have the opportunity to be part of the TPT (The Pension Trust) scheme, our workplace pension scheme where we make an 11% contribution; you are not required to contribute towards this scheme unless you choose to. Depending on your role you may also be entitled to LGPS which is a defined benefit scheme where you contribute a percentage based on how much you earn (as do we) in exchange for a guaranteed amount in your pension pot every year
• Access to high-quality professional learning throughout your career, offering both face-to-face sessions and a bespoke online learning platform
• Access to Ark Rewards scheme offering savings from over 3,000 major retailers, interest-free loans available for season tickets or a bike, gym discounts offering up to 40% off your local gym and free eye tests

Ark is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people in its academies. In order to meet this responsibility, its academies follow a rigorous selection process to discourage and screen out unsuitable applicants.  

Ark requires all employees to undertake an enhanced DBS check. You are required, before appointment, to disclose any unspent conviction, cautions, reprimands or warnings under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975. Non-disclosure may lead to termination of employment. However, disclosure of a criminal background will not necessarily debar you from employment – this will depend upon the nature of the offence(s) and when they occurred. To read more about Ark’s safer recruitment process, please click this link. 

We aim to build a diverse and inclusive organisation where everyone – staff and students – can do their best work and achieve their full potential. We want to reflect and represent diverse perspectives across our organisation because we know that doing so will make us stronger and more effective. To know more about Ark’s diversity and inclusion commitments, please click on this link.