Job Description

Job title: Senior Employee Relations Business Partner

Location:

Maidstone SHQ (Hybrid - 2 days remote or at alternative stations)

Hours:

Full time - 37 hours per week with occasional additional hours for evenings / weekends when required as per JDPS

Pension:

Automatic membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme - career average pension scheme with 18.5% employer contribution

Holidays:

In

addition

to bank/ public holidays you will receive

31

days holiday

Base salary:

Grade 8 - 49,914 - 55,426 per annum depending on experience

Ref:

R000940

Are you an experienced HR professional with a passion for creating positive workplace cultures, guiding leaders, and solving complex people challenges?

Kent Fire & Rescue Service is looking for a skilled Senior Employee Relations Business Partner to join our People & Culture team. In this key role, you'll act as a trusted partner to managers and senior leaders, providing expert guidance on complex employee relations (ER) issues while driving continuous improvement and supporting strategic HR initiatives across the Service.

We're looking for someone who can combine technical ER expertise with empathy, collaboration, and practical problem-solving. You'll need to be confident managing sensitive issues, influencing at senior levels, and balancing people and business needs effectively.

Being a part of Kent Fire and Rescue Service

Everyone is unique. Everyone has value. Everyone helps to make Kent Fire and Rescue Service a great place to work. We are one team. Together with our customers we are creating a safer future for Kent and Medway.

Being a Senior Employee Relations Business Partner

You'll play a vital role in shaping a fair, inclusive, and safe working environment to ensure that our colleague feel supported, valued, and empowered to perform at their best.

You will support and work closely with the ER manager, Senior ER Business Partners, ER Advisor & Coordinator and senior managers to ensure a proactive, inclusive service is at the forefront of the organisation.

What you'll do

Lead and resolve complex ER cases including grievance, disciplinary, performance, and capability matters with professionalism, integrity, and compliance. Assist and lead on TUPE transfers, Employment Tribunal claims, settlement agreements, and whistleblowing cases. Ensure compliance with complex investigations and procedures. Lead mediation and resolution efforts between colleagues and managers. Provide expert coaching and best practices to managers on handling investigations, hearings, performance, and attendance issues in a legally sound and confident manner. Coach and mentor managers, supporting them to handle people issues confidently and effectively. Oversee investigations, hearings, and case reviews, ensuring procedural fairness and consistency. Use data and insights to identify trends, mitigate risks, and drive strategic decision-making. Collaborate with Learning & Development to design and deliver ER-related training and workshops. Collaborate with TT&P to integrate best practices into leadership and coaching programmes and ensure training reflects process updates. Promote wellbeing, inclusion, and engagement initiatives across the organisation. Support policy development, cultural improvement projects, and other People Plan priorities and actively promoting and supporting EDI to enhance engagement, satisfaction, and wellbeing through cross-team collaboration. Foster strong union relationships, managing negotiations and consultations with FBU, other unions, and works councils. Lead on Drug & Alcohol testing where required.

What you'll bring

In-depth knowledge of employment law, HR best practice, and equality legislation. Proven experience managing complex or sensitive ER cases from end-to-end. Strong relationship-building and stakeholder management skills, including with trade unions. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with high attention to detail. A proactive, solution-oriented mindset with the ability to handle competing priorities. Competence in HR systems (ideally iTrent) and data reporting.

How to apply

Please complete an online application and CV by midnight on

1st December 2025

.

Interviews will take place

W/C 8th December 2025.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy upon receiving a sufficient number of applications. If you are interested in this role we recommend that you submit your application at the earliest opportunity.

Inclusion is at the heart of everything we do. We know that great minds don't think alike, so we rely on diverse thoughts, feelings, beliefs and backgrounds to create the best working environment that we can possibly offer.

Kent Fire and Rescue Service, its employees and volunteers, are committed to safeguarding, protecting and supporting children, young people and adults at risk. As part of our safer recruitment process, we will undertake pre-employment checks to verify your suitability for the role. These checks will include your references and a standard or enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. Enhanced DBS check with barred lists are carried out for roles with direct and unsupervised access to children, young people and adults at risk. Risk assessments will be undertaken on any disclosures identified as part of the pre-employment checks.

As a Public Sector organisation with added responsibilities under the Equality Act, 2010 the candidate must demonstrate an understanding of what is meant by Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and how this fits in with their everyday work.

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Pay: 49,914.00-55,426.00 per year

Work Location: In person