Hr Advisor

Role Purpose

Working as part of the wider HR team and closely with the Head of HR to ensure the smooth running of the HR department. You will be responsible for providing a professional, efficient and effective HR advisory service across all schools within your Trust hub. You will work in accordance with established policies and procedures, ensuring compliance with all relevant legislation, maintaining confidentiality and high professional standards at all times. You will work closely with the HR Administrator for your hub to ensure that the HR service is efficient and robust.

We are happy to consider applications from full-time, part-time, 52-week or term time only applicants for this new and exciting position.

Role and Responsibilities

Academy Liaison

· Work closely with the Trust Academies in your Hub to create and maintain excellent relationships with key stakeholders.

· Be the key point of contact for the HR Team for all Headteachers within your Hub.

· Provide generalist HR advice, guidance and support to all Academy-based staff, including advising on HR policies and procedures, escalating to the Head of HR as necessary.

· Create and maintain positive relationships with relevant Trade Union officials.

Recruitment and Onboarding

· Ensuring that recruitment for your Hub is completed in accordance with Safer Recruitment requirements.

· Processing recruitment requests and ensuring these align with the correct authorisation process, salary banding and agreed FTE. Liaising with the HR Administrator to ensure that recruitment packs are produced correctly, and job adverts are placed in a timely manner.

· Keeping an overview of applicants received for each vacancy and working with the Head of HR and HR Administrator to proactively promote vacancies with low applicant numbers, using creative and innovative solutions to increase applications.

· Working with the Head of HR to monitor applicant levels across each platform to identify areas of candidate shortages across your Hub as a whole.

· Working with your Academies on the shortlisting process to ensure that the calibre of applicants being progressed to interview is to the required standard, and that any gaps in application forms are addressed at interview.

· Sending offer of employment emails, ensuring that the job offer is aligned with the recruitment authorisation details and that all forms that the new applicant is required to return are sent, chasing responses as needed.

· Reviewing any issues raised during the pre-employment checks phase of the recruitment process, escalating to the Head of HR as required.

· Drafting and issuing contracts of employment to new employees.

· Sitting on interview panels as required.

· Assisting the Head of HR with various recruitment campaigns as required, for example planning and organising recruitment days.

· Responsibility for maintaining and monitoring the Recruitment Tracker to ensure that vacancies are filled in a timely manner, that candidates are received regular communications, and that all pre-employment checks have been completed.

· Completing ‘spot-checks’ on pre-employment checks to ensure compliance with policy and statutory requirements.

· Completing ‘spot-checks’ on interview processes carried out at Academy level to ensure that interviewing is completed in line with Safer Recruitment guidance.

· Assisting the Head of HR with the development of a range of recruitment and onboarding documentation, including new recruitment packs, a range of interview questions, and welcome packs for new starters.

· Having an overview of the Single Central Record to ensure that this is up to date and accurate at all times, for directly employed staff and supply, volunteers, contractors, governors and Trustees. Producing reports for review with the Head of HR

Induction and Training

· Monitoring probation review dates and liaising with Line Mangers to ensure that the appropriate paperwork is completed for probation periods for new starters, escalating any issues to the Head of HR.

· Maintain annual appraisal records for all employees and work with the Head of HR and Headteacher to ensure that these are completed in line with the timescales of the Appraisal Policy and Pay Policy.

Policies and Procedures

· Ensure that you carry out all work in line with relevant policies and procedures, including Keeping Children Safe in Education.

· Have a thorough understanding of all relevant HR policies, including:

o Sickness Absence

o Special Leave

o Disciplinary

o Grievance

o Family Leave

o Pay & Appraisals

· Providing advice to Headteachers, Line Managers and employees on HR policies, escalating more complex queries to the Head of HR.

· Maintain the HR Policy Tracker and notify the Head of HR when policies are due for renewal.

· Ensure that HR policies are up to date on the schools and Trust website and the HRIS.

Payroll

· Processing contract changes which affect payroll, e.g. changes in hours, flexible working requests.

· Issuing contract change letters to employees for any changes to contract or payroll as detailed above.

· Processing family leave requests to the payroll provider e.g. maternity leave, adoption leave, paternity leave and shared parental leave and ensuring that appropriate letters are issued.

· Ensuring that employees are paid at the appropriate rate in line with their contract of employment for family leave and long term sickness absence.

· Working with the Head of HR, HR Administrator, and relevant school personnel to complete a monthly check of payroll to ensure that all changes have been actioned and that there are no undocumented changes in salary from the previous month.

· Liaising with the payroll provider to deal with payroll issues which have been escalated by the HR Administrator, escalating to the Head of HR as appropriate.

· Dealing with and responding to employees on low-level payroll queries which have been escalated by the HR Administrator, escalating to the Head of HR as appropriate.

· Assist the Head of HR in processing annual staff pay increments in line with the Pay Policy.

Employee Relations

· Receiving and responding to low-and-mid-level ER queries, escalating to the Head of HR as appropriate.

· Take minutes at all ER related meetings, including investigations, disciplinary and grievance hearings.

· Track all absence management within your Hub, ensuring that processes are commenced in line with the Sickness Absence Policy when triggers are hit and leading on these at an Academy level, which will including coaching managers on holding sickness absence meetings with the aim of improving attendance in a supportive manner.

· Making referrals to Occupational Health for employees as required.

Employee Experience

· Work within the wider HR team to contribute to, and lead on as directed, various employee experience and wellbeing initiatives, for example staff surveys, mental health initiatives and employee benefits (these may include Trust-wide incentives and therefore you may work with schools outside of the Bedfordshire hub on these occasions).

· Ensuring that risk assessments are completed for all pregnant employees and providing them with relevant information.

· Having a general ethos of compassion, understanding and a wish to support all of our employees, whilst helping line managers to hold employees accountable for the remit of their role.

· Complete exit interviews for all leavers, ensuring that data is captured for analysis.

HR Metrics

· Collate half-termly HR metrics data for your Hub for sharing with the Head of HR and wider HR team, including:

o Recruitment metrics (time to fill vacancies, applicant numbers etc)

o Sickness absence rates

o Non-sickness absence rates

o Employee turnover rates

o Results of employee surveys

· Review the HR metrics on a regular basis with the Head of HR, to put in place action plans for areas requiring improvement and working together to drive the HR function to provide a “best in class” service.

The Knowledge Schools Trust is an equal opportunities employer. The Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, and applicants must be willing to undergo child protection screening appropriate to the post, including checks with past employers and the Disclosure and Barring Service. The post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the School is therefore permitted to ask job applicants to declare all convictions and cautions (including those which are "spent" unless they are "protected" under the DBS filtering rules) in order to assess their suitability to work with children.

All employees have a responsibility and duty of care to safeguard and promote the welfare of the children and young people in our care. Employees must be aware of the systems within the Trust / Academy which support safeguarding and must act in accordance with the School’s Safeguarding & Child Protection policy and Code of Conduct. Employees will receive appropriate child protection training which is regularly updated.

Job Type: Full-time

Salary: £30,000.00-£35,000.00 per year