Employee Relations (ER) Lead

We're looking for an experienced and proactive Employee Relations Lead to join our People and Culture Team. This is an exciting opportunity for a confident HR professional with strong employee relations expertise who enjoys coaching managers, influencing best practice and driving continuous improvement.

At Cartrefi, we're dedicated to supporting people with learning disabilities and their families across Wales, helping people live fulfilled and enriched lives in their communities.

As our Employee Relations Lead, you'll play a key role in creating a positive colleague experience and supporting managers to confidently and effectively manage employee relations. Your expertise will help ensure fair, consistent and legally compliant practice across Cartrefi, enabling our colleagues to make #EverydayRemarkable for the people we support.

Role: Employee Relations Lead
Location: Cardiff, covering the full Cartrefi geography, with hybrid working available
Hours: 37 hours per week
Salary: £39,000 – £40,000 per annum
Contract: Permanent

What you'll do

As our Employee Relations Lead, you'll be the lead point of contact and subject matter expert for Employee Relations, providing specialist advice and guidance to managers and senior stakeholders across the organisation.

You'll proactively manage and oversee ER cases, ensuring they progress effectively, consistently and in line with employment legislation and best practice. You'll also use ER data and insights to identify trends, improve processes and support the ongoing development of our People Strategy.

You will:

• Provide expert advice and guidance on complex employee relations matters, including disciplinary, grievance, capability and absence management.
• Coach and support People Managers and Senior Managers through complex HR cases, helping them build confidence and capability.
• Oversee the volume and distribution of ER cases, ensuring workloads are managed effectively and cases are progressed in a timely manner.
• Keep up to date with employment legislation and ensure HR policies and procedures reflect current best practice.
• Review and develop HR policies and procedures, particularly in relation to Employee Relations.
• Produce and analyse regular ER reports and metrics, identifying trends and opportunities for improvement.
• Support managers through organisational change, including service redesign, reorganisation and consultation processes.
• Work closely with Learning & Development to identify and deliver opportunities to strengthen managers' HR knowledge and skills.
• Lead and manage the ER workload across the HR Advisory and Administration team.
• Contribute to People Strategy projects and use ER insights to help shape future People initiatives.
• Work collaboratively across the People Team to ensure effective HR processes and compliance.

What we're looking for

We're looking for someone who combines strong technical HR knowledge with excellent judgement, communication and relationship-building skills. You'll be confident working with complex and sensitive situations, influencing stakeholders at all levels and providing practical, solutions-focused advice.

You'll bring:

Essential

• CIPD Level 5 qualification or equivalent.
• Experience delivering an effective HR service within a high-volume Employee Relations environment.
• Strong generalist HR experience, including disciplinary, grievance, absence management and capability processes.
• Thorough knowledge of current UK employment legislation.
• Experience developing and implementing HR policies and procedures.
• Experience developing, analysing and reporting HR and ER data.
• Strong organisational, planning and prioritisation skills.
• Excellent communication, influencing and stakeholder management skills.
• The ability to exercise sound professional judgement and make informed decisions using available information and data.
• A proactive, self-motivated approach with a passion for continuous improvement.
• Experience leading and managing a team.

Desirable

• Experience working within the Not-for-Profit sector.
• Experience of TUPE.
• Experience supporting organisational change, service redesign or reorganisation.
• Experience contributing to HR or People Strategy projects.

What you'll bring

You'll be a people-focused and results-driven HR professional who can build credibility and trust at every level of the organisation. You'll enjoy working collaboratively, developing others and finding practical ways to improve the colleague experience.

Most importantly, you'll share our commitment to Honesty, Trust, Kindness, Respect and Wellbeing, and understand the important role our People Team plays in helping colleagues deliver outstanding support.

Other requirements

• Full, clean driving licence with access to a vehicle.
• Ability to travel to Cartrefi sites across Wales.

If you're passionate about Employee Relations and want to make a real difference to colleagues and the people we support, we'd love to hear from you.

Our Benefits

• Training and development opportunities

• 25 days annual leave rising to 30 days after 5 years’ service with the option to buy and sell leave

• Health and Wellbeing programme - 24 hour access to our Employee Assistance Programme

• Company pension

• Cycle to work scheme

• Benefits and discount platform

• Hybrid working arrangements

• Eligibility to apply for Blue Light discount card

About Us
Our mission is to build a better future by focusing on people with learning disabilities and their families. We’re a Cooperative, which means putting people at the heart of our decision making and support. You can find out more about this here

Application process

Closing Date: Midnight on 21st September

Proposed interview dates: 29th and 30th September in person at our Cardiff office

Please note we reserve the right to close this advert early so we would encourage you to apply early for this position.