People Business Partner (maternity cover - until Feb 2027)

We are looking for a People Business Partner to join our People Team on a Maternity Cover basis. You will ideally already be operating as a confident people advisor looking to take the next step in their career or already have some experience as a people partner. You are passionate about culture & engagement, and ready to drive commercially aligned people strategies and results across the teams you will be supporting. The priorities of this role may shift, so flexibility to work within several areas, and pivot to work on new strategies quickly is very important.

This is a full 360 people position, fundamental in ensuring the business structure and culture is set up for success and aligned to our organisational OKR’s. You will work closely with the wider People team on projects that aim to drive employee engagement and manage change.

Our Future Health will be the UK’s largest ever health research programme, bringing people together to develop new ways to detect, prevent and treat diseases. We are a charity, supported by the UK Government, in partnership with charities and industry. We work closely with the NHS and with public authorities across all nations and regions of the UK.

Our plan is to bring together 5 million volunteers from right across the UK who will be asked to contribute information to help build one of the most detailed pictures we have ever had of people’s health. Researchers will be able to use this information to make new discoveries about human health and diseases. So future generations can live in good health for longer.

What you’ll be doing

As a fast-scaling organisation it’s essential that you are not afraid to get stuck in, gather relevant information, and create a point of view, but be flexible enough to work within several areas and handle changes in direction or new priorities. Your key responsibilities will include but not be limited to:

• Develop people strategy for the teams you partner with, working closely with the Head of People and Culture and line managers to understand strategic outcomes and build out a prioritised plan of activity
• Work with the teams you partner with to define and design ways of working
• Creating a clear leadership and talent strategy plan of where the team need to get to, what support they need as a collective and providing key coaching to line managers.
• Identifying talent and developing plans to both retain, develop, and attract the talent which will drive performance, culture, and productivity
• Develop a clear workforce plan - supporting the operational strategy, working collaboratively with the Talent Acquisition team and the Finance teams as well as across the people team to come up with plans to ensure we have the right skills in the right places at the right time
• Be an active member of the people and Culture team, working across the people function to develop relationships and improve ways of working- proactively sharing knowledge and leading on functional projects
• Ensure that engagement and communication is front of mind for the line managers you support, ensuring that they are connected with the teams they lead, that they continually focus on setting the vision/strategy and communicating progress and priorities to ensure people know where we are heading, why we are heading there and the value that they bring
• Taking a proactive approach to employee relations, reviewing data and spotting any employee relations trends, recommending solutions, and coaching line managers to take any actions you feel are the right steps to take/ tackle problems before they grow.
• Guiding line managers in relation to HR policies and procedures (such as performance improvement, grievances, absence management etc), coaching them through the process and ensuring they have a good understanding of the legal requirements. Our role with ER can be very hands-on, writing scripts, creating outcome letters, etc. to support cases through to completion.