Job summary
- Main area
- Employee Relations
- Grade
- Band 8b
- Contract
- 12 months (Fixed term/secondment)
- Hours
- Full time
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 197-RF6687
- Employer
- Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust
- Town
- Woolwich
- Salary
- £62,215 - £72,293 per annum plus HCAS
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 01/05/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Head of Employee Relations and Policy
Band 8b
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, (LGT), is a community-focused provider of local and acute care, delivering high-quality services to over one million people living across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich, and Bexley. We provide whole-life care and are here to support our communities to live healthier lives as well as taking care of them when they need us the most.
Employing almost 7,500 colleagues, affectionately known as Team LGT, we provide services at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, University Hospital Lewisham, and at over a dozen community settings in Lewisham. We also provide some services at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup.
We have recently launched our new vision and values to mark the LGT10 – the tenth anniversary of our Trust forming in 2013. Our trust vision is to be exceptional. In the quality of our patient care; our support for colleagues; and in the difference we make through our partnerships and in our communities.
To achieve this we value Respect, Compassion, and Inclusion; Being accountable over staying comfortable; Listening over always knowing best; and Succeeding together over achieving alone. You can read more about our visions and values here
Our hospitals and community sites provide a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services, as well as emergency and planned care. The Trust is rated as “good” or “outstanding” in over three-quarters of the services inspected by the Care Quality Commission.
Every year our work includes performing 10,000 procedures in our theatres; bringing seven and a half thousand new lives into the world; carrying out 570,000 visits to patients in their homes or communities and providing emergency care for more than 300,000 patients arriving in our busy Urgent and Emergency Departments.
LGT is a centre for the education and training of medical students enrolled with King’s College London’s GKT School of Medical Education. We are a training centre for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals. We are pioneering new roles that will support the changing needs of our patients and are one of the largest employers of physician associates in the country.
We are committed to working with our partners to deliver the best outcomes for our local communities. This means playing an active role in the South East London Integrated Care System (ICS), and in formal partnerships including the South East London Acute Provider Collaborative, provider partnerships with our local mental health trusts and borough-based boards of the ICS in Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham.
Job overview
12 month Fixed term - Secondment Cover
We are seeking a dynamic and experienced individual to join our team as the Head of Employee Relations and Policy to cover a period of secondment. This role is pivotal in leading a specialist ER team to provide expert, accurate, consistent, comprehensive and high-quality employee relations advisory services to Trust managers and staff.
The successful candidate will be responsible for managing a wide range of employee relations matters, including MHPS, investigation of complaints, resolving disputes, in addition to devising and implementing people related policies and procedures (drawing on subject matter experts) that promote fairness, equality, and inclusion.
You will need to have robust and up to date knowledge of Employment Law and Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions, a deep understanding of HR best practice, as well as strong leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills.
You will be expected to build robust working relationships with direct line reports as well as directors, managers, staff side representatives, and solicitors acting for the Trust.
If you are highly skilled in the management of complex and challenging employee relations issues, and can confidently advise, guide and support managers in executing pragmatic management solutions - we would be delighted to hear from you!
Main duties of the job
To lead a specialist ER team in the following:
- Providing an expert, accurate, consistent and comprehensive human resources advisory service to Trust managers and staff, modelled extensively around e- access and e-tools, that ensures the Trust becomes and remains an employer and provider of choice;
- Providing timely and effective interpretation of developing employment law and local and national NHS HR policy and procedures;
- Devising and ensuring the implementation of HR policies and procedures that promote fairness, equity and inclusion;
- Providing expert information underpinned by analysis of trends, economic circumstances, laws and political factors, to the Trust Management Executive (TME) as appropriate;
- Supporting the delivery of a challenging leadership and management development programme to underpin the Trust’s leadership development programme;
- Minimising the risk to the Trust of an increased employee relations workload by promoting that issues are resolved at informal stages where appropriate, supporting the Trust to develop a culture of continual learning;
- Facilitating and encouraging greater employee engagement; developing close links with ICS partners to work collaboratively on policy development to ensure best use of resources.
Working for our organisation
Our people are our greatest asset. When we feel supported and happy at work, this positivity reaches those very people we are here for, the patients. Engaged employees perform at their best and our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives contribute to cultivate a culture of engagement. We have four staff networks, a corporate EDI Team and a suite of programmes and events which aim to insert the 5 aspirations:
- Improving representation at senior levels of staff with disabilities, from black, Asian, and ethnic minorities background, identify as LGBTQ+ and women, through improved recruitment and leadership development
- Widening access (anchor institution) and employability
- Improving the experience of staff with disability
- Improving the EDI literacy and confidence of trust staff through training and development
- Making equalities mainstream
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
- To advise and support senior managers regarding Trust employee relations policy and practice; inform senior managers of the latest trends, economic circumstances, laws and political factors that must be understood and considered in order to maintain optimum employee relations in the Trust.
- To utilise, develop and maintain expert knowledge to advise managers in highly complex situations in support of their responsibilities and capacity to fulfil Trust and national HR strategy and effective HR practice, and to provide recommendations on the way forward where no precedent exists or options conflict.
- To assess, analyse and understand highly complex, sensitive and contentious employee relations cases, providing advice to managers and the Trust on the appropriate actions to be taken.
- To present information relating to these employee relations cases and to highly complex HR issues to senior management, influencing and persuading them as appropriate.
- To support managers in the management of highly complex employee relations issues, both individual and collective, and the associated communication with staff, consulting and liaising with trade union representatives as necessary.
- To act as a panel member in dismissals and appeals, including MHPS cases and attend Employment Tribunals in support of the Trust’s case, giving witness evidence as appropriate.
- To liaise and support the Medical Director and Deputy Medical Director to ensure best practice in relation to Medical workforce employee relations processes being managed under the MHPS framework.
- To assist in the development and maintenance of employee relations tools, including on-line HR support, to underpin the skill and competencies of managers in managing staff.
- To interpret and assess developing national and local NHS HR strategy and employment law at an early stage and recommend courses of action to senior managers of the risks and benefits realisation to the Trust.
- Working with the Associate Director of Workforce to devise and implement fair and equitable employment policies, procedures and practices, including the education and awareness raising to managers and staff and reflective of developing employment law and transformational HR practice.
- Ensuring that workforce policies and processes are interpreted effectively across the Employee Relations service and that service provision and advice is consistent across Divisions and departments through the development of standard operating procedures for the team.
- To ensure joint working with other organisations to identify and implement best practice and achieve an added value environment.
- To engage with Staff Side and accredited representatives and ensure a proactive and stable employee relations environment that is inclusive and secures the engagement of the workforce as a whole.
- To establish and monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the workforce relations team, producing reports as required, ensuring that performance is maintained at a high standard.
- To devise and operate appropriate mechanisms that enable managers to feed back on the performance of the service and for the service to undertake proper audit for scrutiny.
- To ensure the provision of employee relations data that underpin local management of employment issues and Trust-wide understanding of trends and key issues
- To provide expert advice and support for the Trust at Employment Tribunals and in related legal matters, including advocacy for the Trust as required, drafting of correspondence and settlement of remedies.
Person specification
Education and Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Educated to degree level or equivalent
- Post graduate qualification/masters level study or equivalent experience
- F/MCIPD qualified
- Evidence of continued learning/development
Skills/Knowledge/Ability
Essential criteria
- Exceptional analytical skills to be able to assess and understand very complex employee relations issues.
- Able to foster powerful and productive working relationships internally and externally
- An expert level of knowledge in employee relations issues, including legislation, NHS policy, and best practice
Experience
Essential criteria
- Significant experience in employee relations in a complex, multi-disciplinary and culturally diverse organisation, including Employment Tribunals, TUPE transfers and change management processes
- Experience of leading and managing an employee relations team of a similar size and structure to the one proposed, setting performance standards and targets
- Experience of medical and dental employee relations cases and MHPS case management
- Up to date knowledge of employment legislation and understanding the risks of non-compliance
- Experience of advising managers on highly complex and serious individual and/or collective conflict situations, including disciplinary, capability, grievance and dignity at work issues
- Experience of Employment Tribunals.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working in the NHS
Employer certification / accreditation badges
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Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Tanya Robinson
- Job title
- Associate Director of Workforce
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07501751049
- Additional information
For informal discussions please contact Tanya-Marie Robinson, Associate Director of Workforce: [email protected]
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