Job summary

Do you aspire to work for a London NHS Trust which is at the forefront of innovation and employs some of the best staff in the NHS? At Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, we will strive to give you the best possible experience for the next stage of your career. As the Senior Employee Relations Advisor, you will bring with you significant experience of employee relations. You will be driving change, in improving the experience of our staff and leaders, through the provision of best in class employee relations practices that are based on developing a just culture and excellent people experience. As part of an ambitious team, you will embrace innovative thinking about how we can do things differently both within the Trust and by bringing together partners across organisational boundaries.

You will work closely with the Employee Relations Manager to provide a specialist employee relations and resolution service to managers and staff across the Trust. The post holder will be responsible for managing their own complex employee relations case work, including but not limited to, advising on and supporting on the investigation of cases of all staff including medical and senior staff.

You will need to possess excellent IT skills with the ability to manipulate data to create and display standard and ad hoc ER reports.

Interviews

Interviews will be held on 7th June 2023.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be responsible for managing a complex employee relations case load including disciplinary, grievance, bullying and harassment and capability cases, by working proactively with managers to agree outcomes and propose recommendations, ensuring that risks are dealt with efficiently.

The post holder will be a senior advisor on the team, providing specialist advice to staff and managers in relation to a range of complex employment related issues and will be required to make subsequent recommendations for development of policy, flow-charts, templates and best practice guidelines. The Employee Relations team will adopt a coaching approach in the delivery of advice to managers in order to build confidence in dealing with complex people-management issues and interpreting policy so that balanced decisions can be made without recourse to HR.

The post holder will be responsible for ensuring that advice and support to managers complies with HR best practice and employment legislation and fosters good employee relations.

Key working relation relationships

• Other colleagues and staff in the Human Resources Department.
• All line managers within the Clinical/Corporate Directorates.
• Local and regional Trade Union representatives.
• Internal staff in the Trust.
• Occupational Health.
• External, for instance applicants, members of the public and agencies.

About us

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust provide services from two main hospitals, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and West Middlesex University Hospital, and a number of clinics across London and the South-East.

We have nearly 7,000 members of staff that are PROUD to Care for nearly one million people.

Both hospitals provide full clinical services, including full maternity, emergency and children's, in addition to a range of community-based services across London, such as award-winning sexual health and HIV clinics.

We're one of the best performing Trusts in the country. We're also one of the top trusts to work for - our staff says they're engaged, motivated, and would recommend us as a place to work and receive treatment.

Our Trust has been rated by the Care Quality Commission as 'Good' in all five of the main domains of safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led, giving an us overall rating of 'Good'. We've also been awarded an 'Outstanding' rating for 'use of resources' by an NHS Improvement inspection.

Our facilities are some of the best in the country. We have been investing significant Capital year on year in our estate.

We have recently completed a �30m expansion of our adult and neonatal critical care facilities at Chelsea and Westminster and are planning an ambitious �60m development of an Ambulatory Diagnostics Centre at West Middlesex.

Job description

Job responsibilities

• Provide professional ER advice, support and coaching to staff and managers on a wide range of Employee Relations issues, policies and procedures ensuring that best practice is applied and equal opportunities principles are adhered too.

• Ensure advice is balanced and pragmatic and takes into account clinical and operational issues concerning patient safety and cost.

• Provide regular reports on all ER activity and ensure the employee relations database is updated on at least a weekly basis.

• Provide advice on a range of complex queries escalated from the service desk and HRBP teams on matters including fixed term contracts, probationary periods, flexible working appeals and other Trust terms and conditions and benefits.

• Work collaboratively and assist the Human Resources Business Partners in providing support with workforce related incidents in their respective areas.

• Analyse and interpret people-related metrics to identify trends and inform the development and improvement of ER policies and processes, management development activities and employee engagement.

• Develop and deliver training to managers, employees and colleagues on ER related topics.

• Provide expert specialist ER expertise and guidance on people-related initiatives and change programmes, ensuring they are fit for purpose and fulfil the Trusts legal obligations.

• Supervise and support more junior staff in the ER team to ensure a focus on enabling and empowering advice and expertise, and supporting the team in building individual personal development plans.

• Liaise with Trade Union representatives, managers and staff to enhance positive employee relations within designated areas.

• Provide support to managers with investigations and prepare all documents relating to formal meetings and hearings to high quality in line with timeframes.

• Sit on hearing panels and provide support to the hearing manager as required.

• Attend appeal hearings as required.

• Support managers with complex medical staff issues, including support with MHPS investigations.

• Influence the development of ER interventions designed to resolve people-management issues early including the delivery of facilitated meetings and formal mediation.

• Ensure a holistic view of Trust-wide employee relations issues is adopted, identifying and managing interdependencies, themes and issues.

• Through the analysis and interpretation of internal and external ER related data sources, identify trends and develop appropriate recommendations for value-added strategic ER interventions that meet organisational needs. Ensure the impacts of these initiatives are measurable and evidenced.

• Maintain and develop knowledge on the application, interpretation and monitoring of up-to-date employment legislation, terms and conditions, policies and procedures both local and national HR strategy, in order to give advice and information to managers and employees.

• Develop employee relations initiatives and practices based on trust, mutual respect, strong performance management and accountability and clear expectations from and support for employees.

• With support and advice from the Employee Relations Manager provide consistent expert ER advice to the HR Business Partnering team and colleagues as required enabling all employment related cases to be handled fairly, consistently, transparently, in a timely fashion and in line with our agreed practices and procedures.

• Support the team in the development of documentation for managers and employees in supporting the application of ER policy and process, such as process maps and template letters.

• Develop and support the delivery of ER related learning and talent development interventions, working with and seeking input from other teams as required.

• Working with the relevant managers, provide an up skilling programme on ER related topics supporting the development of ER competency across the Trust.

• Advise managers on complex sickness and absence issues and assist managers with the process and procedures in accordance with policy, including preparation of sickness absence reviews and case management where necessary.

• With the Head of HR Employee Relations and the HR Business Partner team support the implementation of ER policy, procedures and written guidance for managers and employees, enabling them to be applied consistently.

• Provide ER expertise to Trust-wide initiatives and change programmes.

• Oversee and assist with the investigation and preparation of the Trusts position in employment tribunals and other external employee dispute resolution procedures as required.

• Work with the Employee Relations Manager to identify and anticipate future legal changes and understand and plan for the impact on ER practice at the Trust.

• Work collaboratively with key stakeholders to assess the impact of policy and practice and make recommendations to address areas of inconsistency or practice improvement.

• Work with the Employee Relations Manager, to help develop clearly defined ER policies, processes, and practices and with the Head of HRBP, ensure these are applied consistently within the team.

• To work with colleagues to share knowledge, experience and learnings to enable continuous improvement and ensure consistency of HR business partnering.

• Plan time and workload appropriately when managing own caseload ensuring clear project planning for investigations to ensure timescales are met and work is co-ordinated.

• Undertake any other duties or projects commensurate with the nature and grade of this post as required.

Person Specification

Education and Qualifications

Essential

• CIPD qualified or significant experience in an employee relations role
• Educated to Degree level or equivalent experience

EXPERIENCE

Essential

• Experience of advising a range of stakeholders on a broad range of ER issues including sickness, disciplinary, grievance and performance management
• Significant experience in supporting disciplinary investigations
• Experience supporting and advising managers in presenting cases at hearings
• Experience of managing multiple complex ER cases from start to finish
• Experience in a development role which includes design, delivery and evaluating development programmes
• Experience writing policy and procedures

Desirable

• Medical staffing experience
• Experience delivering training
• Experience using a coaching approach to build competence and confidence

SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

Essential

• Knowledge of current employment legislation and best practice in ER policies, principles and procedures
• Analytical skills, able to analyse information effectively identifying the causes of problems and proposing practical solutions to address them based on knowledge and application of policy
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills engaging effectively with a range of internal and external stakeholders at all levels
• Very strong report-writing skills; able to offer critical feedback to managers to improve narrative
• Exceptional listening and questioning skills that enable empower and get to the heart of the issue
• Ability to manage competing priorities and deliver multiple concurrent activities within agreed deadlines and to agreed standards with consistent attention to detail
• Ability to develop strong relationships
  Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.
  
  289-CR-1346