People and Culture Lead

Responsibilities

• Act as a strategic partner to Regional Directors, building trusted relationships and ensuring people strategies directly support operational and service delivery goals.
• Develop and deliver tailored people plans for each region, aligned with organisational strategy, KPIs, and local priorities.
• Embed organisational change – ensuring that recent transformation programmes are sustained, capability is built, and managers feel confident in leading new ways of working.
• Coach and support managers to strengthen leadership capability, particularly in areas such as absence management, performance management, and employee engagement.
• Create clear links between people data and business outcomes, helping leaders understand how areas such as absence, agency usage, and retention impact both cost and service quality.
• Champion a positive and inclusive culture, using colleague voice, surveys, and engagement tools to identify issues and co‑create solutions with managers and teams.
• Provide visible presence across services, regularly travelling to sites and attending leadership and team meetings to offer hands‑on support and guidance.
• Use data and insights to inform decision‑making, identify people risks, and recommend pragmatic solutions that balance commercial and colleague needs.
• Work collaboratively with centres of excellence within the wider People team, ensuring policies, practices, and initiatives are consistently applied and adapted for local needs.
• Promote equality, diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing across all people practices, creating environments where colleagues feel supported, engaged, and able to thrive.
• Contribute to organisational performance by tracking ROI on people initiatives, ensuring people practices add value to both colleagues and service delivery.

• CIPD Level 7 qualified (or equivalent experience), with strong knowledge of employment legislation, organisational development, and workforce planning.
• Skilled in embedding change – not just delivering transformation projects, but ensuring changes are sustained through capability building, coaching, and cultural alignment.
• Highly confident in building manager and leadership capability, particularly around absence management, performance, engagement, and succession planning.
• Adept at using people data and insights to influence decision‑making, spot risks, and link people practices to service KPIs (e.g. absence rates, agency spend, staff survey outcomes).
• A strong communicator and influencer, able to build trust quickly with Regional Directors and senior managers with very different leadership styles.
• Comfortable with regular national travel and maintaining a visible presence across services – you'll know that sometimes the most meaningful impact happens in team meetings, on‑site with leaders, and in the moments where you can challenge and support face‑to‑face.
• Commercially astute, with the ability to balance organisational goals, colleague wellbeing, and service user needs.
• A values‑driven leader who champions inclusion, wellbeing, and engagement, creating the conditions where people can thrive.
• Resilient and adaptable, thriving in a complex and changing environment, and able to “connect the dots” across multiple services and priorities.

If you are a seasoned HR professional with the credibility to influence senior leaders, the resilience to navigate complex environments, and the drive to make a tangible difference, then this is your opportunity to join us and leave a lasting mark on colleagues, services, and communities.

We’re looking for someone who can bring both credibility and pragmatism – a trusted partner who can balance strategic thinking with a hands‑on approach to building capability and embedding change.

An experienced Senior HR Business Partner / OD leader with a proven track record of partnering senior stakeholders to deliver people strategies that drive performance and culture.

This is a fantastic role for someone who wants to go beyond traditional HR and truly shape culture, capability, and leadership in services that make a difference to communities across the UK.

Please note:

We’re sharing this opportunity across a…