HR Manager - Part time (0.6 FTE - Flexible Working)

Challenge Partners

Employment Type Part time 3 days per week/hybrid working
Location Hybrid · London
Salary £42,062 - £48,545 pro rata and subject to experience
Team Operations
  • Closing: 8:48am, 20th Dec 2023 GMT

Job Description

Preamble

To support the next phase of Challenge Partners’ development and 5-year growth strategy.

Job purpose

As HR Manager, your role will be to support Challenge Partners to recruit, develop and retain a happy and effective team and to improve the efficiency of internal systems and processes. The role is important for making sure employees get an excellent experience at Challenge Partners.

As HR Manager, you will create an environment, culture, processes and practices which ensure Challenge Partners is a great place to work.

You will work to contribute to the development and implementation of a strategy to secure Challenge Partners’ long-term growth so that we are able to deliver our vision and mission.

You will be a role model for our values at all times and meet the expectations described in ‘What does it take to be a good leader at CP?’. You will act as an ambassador for Challenge Partners in all that you do and develop and harness a personal, professional network to extend our reach and impact.

You will work closely with the Head of Finance and Operations to drive the sustainable success of Challenge Partners. You will work across the organisation as needed to address our current and long-term development and will have specific responsibilities for developing our culture and leadership, capacity, and capability.

Key responsibilities

Reporting to the Director of Finance and Operations - and working closely with the Finance and Operations Manager - the HR Manager will have the following key areas of responsibility and be expected to undertake other responsibilities as requested, which are commensurate with the role:

HR and Operations

  • Coordinate and administer company benefits (e.g. health schemes), and research other ways to improve our employee experience

  • Regularly review our company handbook and work with the Finance and Operations Manager to create and update policies

  • Track and coordinate performance management  reviews (PMRs): work with the relevant line managers to keep PMR frameworks up-to-date; make sure that PDRs are completed in a timely and effective manner, and make improvements to the PDR process

  • Create a culture and design (or modify) and implement policies and processes to ensure Challenge Partners meets all its legal obligations as an employer and is a great place to work

  • Review all HR policies against external legislation and internal strategies, updating these policies where necessary, or creating new ones to underpin exemplary practice

  • Create shared IT spaces (with appropriate security) for all HR policies and processes, monitoring the completion of such processes such as annual reviews

  • Coordinate external providers (e.g. Croner) to support annual pay reviews identify and implement (subject to budget) suitable HR systems that will help to automate Challenge Partners’ processes and lead to greater self-service of HR matters

  • Document all critical HR processes, delegating this task as appropriate and consulting staff where it would be beneficial

Recruitment

  • Write, edit and improve our job descriptions.

  • Advertise positions and work with recruiters to source high quality candidates.

  • Organise second-round tasks and final interviews, and be a part of interview panels.

  • Analyse our anonymised applicant data to evaluate our effectiveness in attracting a high-quality pool of diverse candidates.

  • Write employee contracts.

  • Onboard all new starters with the relevant line manager (e.g. create and edit induction timetables; set them up with equipment and logins to internal systems; guide them through the handbook and explain HR processes).

  • Manage the process for all Challenge Partners leavers (e.g. conduct exit interviews; write references).

Other

  • Manage projects that fall within the overall remit of this role, increasing the quality of Challenge Partners’ contracts with customers and suppliers and ensuring compliance with GDPR

Person specifications

You will be a role model for our values at all times and meet the expectations described in ‘What does it take to be a good leader at CP?’.

Values

Value - What it means for the central team

Excellence - We work hard and with urgency, striving for excellence in all that we do. We put the needs of our schools first.

Equity - We treat each other/everyone fairly, with care and respect. We value, encourage, and celebrate diversity in all its forms. We are one team.

Courageous leadership - Everyone is a leader, encouraged and empowered to take ownership and responsibility for their contribution to our mission.

Challenge - We expect the best of each other and support and challenge each other as critical friends.

Collaboration - We work purposefully together and in partnership with our schools to achieve more together than we could alone.

Innovation - We use and generate research and innovation intelligently to continually improve the work we do.

What does it mean to be a leader at Challenge Partners?

Our ambition at CP is that all staff have opportunities to lead their defined areas of work and initiatives that contribute to the wider development and success of the organisation. Some staff also have formal leadership positions or responsibilities (for business areas and/or people) and this document seeks to describe some of the features of good leadership that are particularly relevant to them.

Development as a leader is a lifetime’s work and never complete. It takes humility, focused effort and a good deal of optimism. It isn’t easy and we all make many mistakes along the way. The trick is to celebrate what we’re good at and acknowledge and work on the things that don’t come as easily. Good leadership doesn’t happen by accident, it is intentionally developed and practiced.

Good CP leaders…

  • Have willing followers - good CP leaders know that their power as a leader comes not from the position they hold, but from their personal skill in inspiring and influencing those around them. They do not expect respect, they earn it. They rarely “tell” colleagues what to do, but are skillful in encouraging and enabling them to do what needs to be done, giving them agency and their own opportunities to lead.

  • Hold the vision for their area of work and define and lead the strategy to achieve it - good CP leaders can describe and generate excitement about the vision for a piece of work, linking it to our mission, values and strategic objectives. They take time to secure buy-in from colleagues across the organisation to this vision, and can describe the practical steps to achieve it, and the contribution particular individuals and tasks will make.

  • Invest in relationships - people buy into people as much (if not more) than they buy into compelling visions. Good CP leaders take the time to build relationships, going beyond the transactional to understand their colleagues as individuals with unique motivators, aspirations, concerns and so on. They use this knowledge to adapt how they work to meet different colleague’s needs, and lead with humanity, humility and compassion. They also share themselves appropriately, allowing others to get to know them as a fellow human.

  • Encourage, enable and support the development of others - the best CP leaders identify and invest in the leaders of the future, thinking carefully about their development, empowering them in their roles, and identifying opportunities and providing support for their growth.

  • Put the needs of the organisation before their own - as a charity, we exist to serve schools and ultimately children. Everything we do needs to be evaluated against our charitable purpose, and our ambitions as individuals come second to that. This doesn’t mean martyring ourselves - we want CP to be a great place where people want to work, have excellent opportunities and support for their growth and wellbeing - but, particularly as leaders, we need to be able to take the step back that allows us to look dispassionately at what is in the best interest of the organisation, putting aside our personal preferences and desires.

  • Demonstrate the six Challenge Partners values in all that they do - as leaders we are constantly watched and must hold ourselves (as others will) to the highest standards of integrity and model the values we expect everyone in the organisation to demonstrate. We are honest when we make mistakes and humble in seeking and accepting feedback on our leadership, recognising that none of us will ever be perfect.

  • As a leadership team (whether the formal LT or as a wider group of leaders across the organisation), we work collaboratively and act collectively - this means that while we take ownership of our objectives and responsibility for our work, we rarely do it alone. We seek input and agreement from others, particularly in the early stages of setting the vision and at key decision points. We ask for help. When discussing each others’ work, we show respect and sensitivity, offering challenge as needed on the issues at hand, but never make this personal. Once we have decided something (whether by consensus or other means), we align behind that decision, whatever our personal view (“collective cabinet responsibility”).


Removing bias from the hiring process

Applications closed Wed 20th Dec 2023

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Removing bias from the hiring process

  • Your application will be anonymously reviewed by our hiring team to ensure fairness
  • You’ll need a CV/résumé, but it’ll only be considered if you score well on the anonymous review

Applications closed Wed 20th Dec 2023