Job Description

HR Advisor - Maternity Cover

The Park Academies Trust is looking to appoint a dedicated and experienced HR Advisor to join our central team, supporting all the schools within our Trust. This is an exciting opportunity to develop your career by joining a Trust which truly values its staff and provides a highly supportive environment.

Working as part of a team, you will be involved in various aspects of HR, from recruitment and onboarding to providing guidance and advice to our school leaders and staff, employee relations and casework.

Job Purpose:

Under the direction of the Trust HR Business Partner, ensure the provision of pragmatic, commercially sound advice and day to day guidance on a range of issues, working with the administration team to ensure delivery of an effective, professional and consistent HR and payroll function across the academies in the Trust.

Key Accountabilities:

Provide day to day advice and guidance on a range of HR and Employee Relations matters.

Ensure that the HR Business Partner is kept up to date with current activities, particularly where there may be areas of risk for the Trust.

Familiarise themselves with all schools within the MAT in order to understand the key personnel, structures and role profiles within these.

Assist the HR Business Partner in providing support, coaching and training to all managers regarding people management and their responsibilities to recognise and mitigate risks to the Trust in this area.

Provide cover for the payroll function and school-based HR admin team as necessary.

Under the direction of the HR Business Partner, play a key role in the consistent, effective and efficient delivery of all people management processes including, but not limited to:

Recruitment and Lifecycle

Carry out recruitment activities for the Trust central team and schools, and support any new schools joining the Trust, including ensuring appropriate policies and safeguarding procedures are implemented and followed for all recruitment activities.

Liaise with the HR admin team to ensure all new starters comply with safeguarding.

Assist in keeping the induction process under review so that it remains relevant and appropriate and follows trust induction protocols.

Have an overview of probation periods and assist managers where required with this.

Work with the HR admin team to ensure timely and accurate contractual changes, including changes relating to National Living Wage, annual pay review and other statutory updates.

Liaise with the admin team to ensure all leavers are processed correctly and relevant people informed.

Ensure maintenance of individual staff records on the MAT Information Management System (currently Arbor).

Ensure maintenance of staff manual and electronic records (where appropriate) to ensure these are always an up-to-date reflection of the workforce and comply with all data protection responsibilities.

Absence

Ensure sickness absence policies are applied appropriately and consistently, including attending meetings if required.

Ensure Leave of Absence policies for other absences are followed correctly and consistently, with deductions made where required.

Ensure correct approach to statutory leave such as maternity, paternity and shared parental leave.

Employee Relations

Ensure compliance with HR processes and procedures to enable employee relations issues to be dealt with in a proactive and robust fashion.

Identify trends or areas of concern at a department, school or Trust level and communicate these to the HR Business Partner.

Support TUPE, redundancy or other programmes as directed by the HR Business Partner to ensure that they are carried out in a fair, supportive and legally compliant manner.

Advise and support line managers and principals on the management of employee relations cases in accordance with policy and legislation, in particular ensuring compliance with equality duties.

Payroll

Have a understanding of the Trust approach to pay, including knowledge of the different pay scales and historical TUPE differences.

Work with the team to ensure that all payroll actions are timely, accurate and efficient.

As required and directed by the HR Business Partner, support payroll processes carried out by the Payroll and HR Administrator. This includes payroll checking and correction, and cover of the role where necessary.

Work with the HR admin team to co-ordinate the preparation, completion and submission of a range of statutory returns such as; Teachers Pensions Annual Return, School Workforce Census and others as required.

Supplementary Accountabilities:

Have an understanding of the challenges and opportunities of an HR function in a multi academy trust.

Understand the financial aspect of HR decision making.

Use this knowledge to contribute fully to the aims of the MAT.

Develop relationships and communicate with appropriate organisations such as; other academies, Trade Unions and occupational health providers.

Share expertise and skills with others

Participate in training and other learning activities as required

Maintain a good level of current knowledge on HR matters

No job description can be exhaustive and the duties may alter in practice or over time. The post holder is expected to use his/her professional judgment to ensure that the role continues to evolve and develop in line with the Trust's changing requirements.

Job Scope:

This role requires the post holder to display a high degree of initiative and responsibility. The post holder will be expected to carryout tasks accurately with a minimum of supervision, and to have day to day responsibility for the support of key areas such as HR advice, and administration including payroll. There are no line management responsibilities.

Knowledge and Experience:

CIPD qualified and/or or equivalent experience

Experience of HR advice and ER casework

Effective use of specialist ICT packages relating to HR

Full working knowledge of Microsoft Office and Microsoft Outlook

Good knowledge of relevant policies, codes of practice, legislation and employment law

Good communicator with both adults and children

Work constructively as part of a team, understanding roles and responsibilities within the HR and payroll teams.

Have attended, or be willing to attend, Safer Recruitment training

Decision Making:

Decision making on day-to-day activities, with reference to the HR Business Partner where relevant.

Contacts and Relationships:

HR team

Senior Management and all Trust employees

Occupational Health, Orovia and other external organisations and service providers

Other Academies and appropriate local bodies such as: Trades Unions representatives

HMRC, Pension Agencies and other statutory bodies

Creativity and Innovation:

The HR Advisor will work closely with the HR Business Partner to ensure that the HR function consistently adapts in a changing environment, reflecting best practice at all times.

In accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998, jobholders should take reasonable care to ensure that personal data is not disclosed outside the Academy procedures, or use personal data held on others for their own purposes. In accordance with the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, ensure requests for non-personal information are dealt with in accordance with the Academy's written procedures.

This organisation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment.

Staff must work in accordance with the South West Child Protection procedures and Child Protection/Safeguarding Policy and understand their role within that Policy.

Why choose us?

The Park Academies Trust is a family of schools, both primary and secondary, that believes in 'collaboration not competition'. Together we are stronger!

Formed in 2016 with the vision to make a significant contribution to improving education, we are a growing Trust with a strong academic performance and are looking to enhance our team with dedicated and passionate teachers.

Currently eight schools: Abbey Park School, Lydiard Park Academy, Highworth Warneford School, The Deanery CE Academy, Red Oaks Primary School, Orchid Vale Primary School, Bridlewood Primary School and Kingfisher CE Academy, the Trust offers a high-quality educational provision from nursery right up to Sixth Form, enabling staff and pupils alike to benefit from being part of a thriving multi-phase educational Trust.

The positive and caring ethos at all our schools is combined with a clear mission to deliver the richest possible education experience which enables young people to leave our care as responsible citizens equipped to fulfil their personal goals and career aspirations.

We are offering an exciting opportunity to develop your career by joining a Trust which truly values its staff and provides a highly supportive environment.

What we offer:

A positive and dynamic environment in a Trust which is growing in both size and success A strong pupil ethos centred on mutual respect and fulfilling potential Competitive salary Staff benefits package, including interest free affordable technology, cycle to work scheme, shopping and holiday discounts Staff wellbeing: access to On Line Doctor, discounted gym membership, Employee Assistance Programme Attractive pension scheme
Job Types: Full-time, Temporary

Pay: 30,000.00-30,000.01 per year

Benefits:

Company pension
Work Location: In person