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Formative is a busy digital communications agency, which has always had a unique culture at its heart. Our people-first approach was cemented in 2021 when we transitioned to full employee ownership. When we ask people what motivates them the most, and what they love most about working at Formative, the number one answer is always "the people". We want to maintain this.

Our Senior Human Resources Manager has full ownership of some of the core areas that make Formative what it is today. The role will have both tactical and strategic responsibilities providing an outstanding experience to both internal Formative team members and external potential candidate.

Role Outline:

Leadership:

• Provide leadership, feedback and exemplary line management of the Human Resources team.
• Driving good management practices across the business through supporting and collaborating with the Directors and people managers.
• With the HR Business Partner, provide expert professional judgement, advice, and guidance to the senior leadership team, managers and team leaders across all areas of HR, particularly in regard to highly sensitive and/ or complex matters.
• In conjunction with the HR Business Partner, the development, monitoring, and implementation of people strategies, policies and procedures, which ensure best practice and legal compliance whilst meeting our business needs.
• Ownership of continually building the Human Resources service offering and effectiveness across the business.
• Driving human resources projects and initiatives in support of key objectives and business plans, alongside the HR Business Partner.
• Provide expert counsel on UK employment law and best practice, continuing to stay abreast of any changes and implementing where necessary.
• Be an avid champion the Human Resources team, helping to ensure the team’s role and purpose is understood across the business.
• Spearheading compensation calibration and external benchmarking as required.
• Collaborative leadership and contribution to the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group. Observing, researching and feeding back to the DEI team ways to continually improve these initiatives at Formative.

Learning and Development:

• Drive Formative’s learning and development strategy, embedding core principles of meaningful, ongoing learning and development into line manager and employee standard working patterns.
• Alongside HR Business Partner, develop an effective framework to empower line managers to take the lead on their team’s ongoing learning and growth to support employee engagement and performance management.
• Ensure core strengths and passions are embraced and utilized across the organisation to build high performance teams.
• Champion and drive Formative’s continuous review process, as well as annual PDP process, pivoting managers towards regular, meaningful conversations as part of the L&D framework.
• Listen to feedback and modifying existing learning programs where appropriate to ensure they meet business needs (e.g. leadership development, peer to peer learning, awareness months).
• Providing expert advice and guidance on viable learning and development opportunities available within Formative.
• Work as a strategic business partner with the senior leadership team to drive succession planning whilst identifying capability gaps and the future people plan.
• Ensure that Diversity and Inclusion is meaningfully integrated into all development plans.

Business Partnership:

• Building clear frameworks across the HR function to ensure that the senior leadership team are supported in respect of performance management, people processes, policy and practice.
• Development of a retention strategy ensuring that the teams feel motivated and high performance is recognized.
• Ensure that role descriptions are in place and regularly updated across the whole Company In conjunction with the HR Business Partner, develop a clear framework in in respect of job roles, job architecture and reward.
• In conjunction with the HR Business Partner provide ongoing support to the Management team in respect of their own team structures (in respect of fit within the job architecture, promotion, salary and succession plan).
• Carry out regular catch ups/one to ones with the senior leadership team to provide support, identify issues early and to determine any proactive action.
• Ensuring that the Performance Management system is embedded and underpins the review process used by the Formative Team.
• Supporting change processes and programmes to ensure a solution focused approach.
• Leading on employee engagement underpinned by opportunities for collaboration, good communication and effective practices
• Driving Well Being practices and processes in conjunction with the Human Resources team.
• Controlling the Human Resource team budget, reporting on any budgetary concerns and spend.
• Lead on special projects and communicate and direct on strategy and implementation.

Recruitment:

• Drive and implement the recruitment strategy, which will be reflective of Formative’s culture, whilst meeting the requirements of the people plan.
• Take responsibility for any senior management or sensitive hire positions.
• In conjunction with the managers and HR Business Partners, continuously review core competency questions which embed the Formative values for use within the recruitment process.
• Working closely with the Human Resources team to review current recruitment activities and processes.

This role outline is indicative of the primary duties and is not intended as an exhaustive list of all aspects of the role. It may be updated periodically.

Skills

• Exceptional self-management and organisational skills
• Strong interpersonal, communication and writing skills with a client-service focus and focus on solutions.
• Demonstrate ability to effectively manage multiple strands of activity concurrently
• Solutions oriented/problem solver with a resourceful mindset
• Ability to plan and prioritise, work under pressure.
• Ability to identify where bottlenecks are and ask questions when things are unclear.
• Engaging and trusted rapport with Senior Leadership Team, managers and team members and external stakeholders.
• Confidence and skill in leading meetings

Experience and Qualifications

• CIPD level 5 or equivalent
• At least 5+ years’ experience ideally at an HR Business Partner level role or above
• Good employment law knowledge and proven experience of applying updated employment law to HR practices.
• Demonstrable experience within the Business Partner field of HR
• Previous leadership/line management experience would be an advantage.
• Experience of managing and supporting change.
• As we operate a remote working environment, experience of communication through use of IT and virtual platforms is essential.
• Able to understand and apply concepts quickly.
• Previous experience of working within the Marketing/Communications/PR agency/ Creative environment would be an advantage.