Head of People Services

We are ambitious, passionate and committed to achieve the very best outcomes for our colleagues and our students and always aim to be the very best we can be. We recognise and value our people as our most important strength in achieving each of the strategic outcomes within our College’s Strategic Plan so we are excited to be recruiting to this key senior role.

We believe it is through our people that an excellent student experience will be delivered, and this will have a positive impact in our local community. We value inclusion and we are committed to the promotion of equality, diversity, and inclusion, ensuring we have a diverse, skilled, and motivated workforce who are empowered and engaged. This makes our College a unique, vibrant and rewarding place to work.

This key senior role attracts a competitive salary of £51,922 per annum.

The Head of People Services Role:

In this exciting role you will ensure that the experience of all colleagues places our core values at the centre of all we do and you will ensure that we recruit and support the best new colleagues to our teams to achieve our core aims and objectives.

You will lead on ensuring that our people related policies and practice are current, relevant and followed consistently with care and kindness, fairly and with due regard to employment law.

Responsibilities as our Head of People Services will include: 

• Ensuring that treatment of employees is consistent with employment law, our leadership charter, and college values and objectives
• Overseeing the investigation and successful resolution of all employee relations cases including grievance, disciplinary, absence management and organisational change processes in an accurate and timely way, meeting key performance indicators and at all times meeting legal and insurance requirements.
• Managing own complex ER caseload, providing high quality consistent advice.
• Devising engaging internal communication channels that promote best employee relations practice and reflect current and emerging legal requirements
• Using the voices of our colleagues to continually improve their experience, ensuring that we gather and act on employee relations insights at the moments that matter the most.
• Leading staff recruitment activities and initiatives, anticipating current and future staffing requirements, and pro-actively addressing skills gaps and recruitment challenges.
• Analysing employee recruitment and employee relations data to identify trends and opportunities to improve the employee experience, performance and culture, working with Executive team, the Head of Organisational Development and other Senior Leadership colleagues to systematically build our employee relations practice to further improve employee satisfaction.
• Leading projects and management training that delivers consistent employee relations practice in all areas.

 *The above list of duties is not exhaustive and is subject to change. The post holder may be required to undertake other duties within the scope and grading of the post.

As our Head of People Services, you’ll ideally have:

• A degree level qualification in Human Resources or a related topic
• A level 5 or above HR qualification appropriate to the role
• A background in Employee Relations/HR business partner at a sufficiently senior level to afford credibility
• Experience in leading whole organisation employee relations practice and initiatives
• A proven track record of leading and developing high performing, proactive and customer focused People Services Team
• The ability to develop optimum leadership skills and support excellent leadership performance
• Pro-active identification and implementation of innovative and engaging employee relations solutions
• A full member of the CIPD
• Experience of assessing and constructively challenging and supporting performance improvement, utilising coaching, mentoring, negotiation and performance management skills
• Be able to attend college events, including occasional events that fall outside of normal working hours
• An understanding of Keeping Children Safe In Education
• The ability to be able to travel between sites

Benefits you will receive:

As a member of the management team at Bournemouth & Poole College you can expect to receive a market rate salary and excellent benefits including:

• 36.5 days annual leave plus bank holidays
• up to 4 days leave during the Christmas closure period
• Free parking at all of our college sites (where spaces are available)
• Access to Discount Schemes at multiple retailers
• Pension options
• Excellent support and career development

If you feel you are the right candidate for this Head of People Services role, then please click ‘apply’ now! If you would like an informal conversation about the role please contact us to arrange this.

Closing Date: 22nd May 2024

Interview Date: 4th June 2024

We reserve the right to close this post early if there is a high level of applicants.

The College is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults, and expects all staff to share this commitment. The successful applicant will be required to undertake appropriate safeguarding checks which includes an enhanced DBS check as well as providing proof of right to work in the UK.