Address
SalaryLocations: Manchester and Cheltenham
Salary: £48,417 (plus an annual National Security Payment of £2,520)
Flexible Working Hours: Due to the confidential/personal data aspects of the role, you will be completely office-based. Part-time (25 hrs per week min) and job share opportunities will be considered.
About Us
GCHQ is an intelligence, cyber and security agency with a mission to keep the UK safe. We use cutting-edge technology, ingenuity and partnerships to identify, analyse and disrupt threats. Working with our intelligence partners MI5 and MI6, we protect the UK from terrorism, cyber-attacks and espionage. At GCHQ you’ll do varied and fascinating work in a supportive and inclusive environment that puts the emphasis on teamwork.
The Role
As a Senior HR Caseworker, you’ll join our HR Casework Team, which is currently undergoing a significant transformation. This is an opportunity to be part of this exciting journey, introducing new ways of working and continuous improvement to deliver a professional and modern casework service. The transformation will improve line management capability, reducing People risks for the Department, through expert, legally compliant, risk-based advice.
In this key role, you will provide in-the-moment guidance and coaching to managers with potential or ongoing people issues, via phone, email, or face-to-face. Your task? To help managers find the best solution for the employee and the business through risk-based options. For this aspect of the role, it’s important that you can build productive and trusted relationships quickly, whilst empowering managers to make pragmatic, informed, evidence-based decisions. You will focus on early resolution where appropriate, and proactive end-to-end case handling in more complex cases.
We’ll be looking to you to support managers with a wide range of people issues, identifying and tackling trends using MI, and creating outreach interventions and training solutions to address areas of concern across GCHQ. Whatever the challenge, teamwork will be essential. You will work collaboratively with areas including HR Policy, HR shared services, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, HR Business Partners, Legal, Vetting and Wellbeing services, to ensure seamless customer service.
To provide high-calibre advice, coaching and quality assurance of case handling strategies, you will need a practical understanding and experience of managing complex HR cases and up-to-date, in-depth knowledge of employment law and HR policies. Meanwhile, you will get to the root causes of issues using high emotional intelligence, treating every interaction with empathy and respect.
Be aware that you will be working to short time frames so you must be able to manage a variety of tasks and priorities simultaneously. It’s all about providing risk-based advice and practical solutions to resolve both emerging and more complex People concerns. At this level, you’ll provide ongoing advice and coaching to managers on high-profile and complex cases, taking into account contributory factors, and focusing on follow up and resolution. As an expert in case management (including spotting risks and gaps in handling) you’ll be used to running cases such as Sexual Harassment and Racism.
Your role will extend to reviewing cases with team members, advising and implementing appropriate interventions to ensure cases have a suitable case-handling strategy and are dealt with fairly, accurately and efficiently. In fact, you may take charge of a team of caseworkers, providing oversight and coaching, driving high performance and embedding a culture of continuous improvement. With your guidance, team members will develop their capability, confidence and practical handling of cases.
You’ll also be working with leadership across the business on employee relations issues. This may include the use of data, evidence and insight to spot trends and areas of concern and to develop bespoke interventions in partnership with the business. You’ll keep up to date with any legislation, case law or best practice changes , and request customer feedback to pin down any areas for development and continuous improvement opportunities.
Finally, you’ll take ownership of a particular casework policy and the associated processes/guidance (for example, misconduct or bullying and harassment). It will be your task to review and continuously improve the documentation in line with feedback and best practice. This may involve leading relevant negotiations and consultation with the Trade Union.
As part of the transformed service, we are aiming to operate an Advice Line between the hours of 0800-1800 Monday – Friday. However, the exact schedule will be determined by business requirements so will be subject to change. The rota system will be in place across the team so we have the required level of service available.
Please note that the team will operate on a dual-site basis between Cheltenham and Manchester, so you’ll need to travel between these two sites for team events. You may occasionally need to travel to other sites to support managers.
About You
To join us, you must have a CIPD Level 5 qualification or significant HR experience, including a detailed practical working knowledge of UK employment law and HR case-handling experience. Ideally, you’l also have extensive experience in HR Business partnering. You’ll combine this with experience of senior-level coaching interventions, knowledge of HR policies and processes and a firm grasp of the significance of HR data. You’ll know how it can be used to shape interventions and have the ability to interpret and analyse trends. If you also have experience of a fast-paced technical customer-service environment, we could have a home for your skills. Just show us that you’re resilient, empathetic, collaborative and a natural coach and communicator.
Training and Development
Join us and you can look forward to job-specific training and development, plus opportunities for internal and external training that are relevant to the role. You’ll also be eligible for a personal learning budget, which will give you access to broader personal development.
We ask that you commit to Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and discuss learning and development requirements as part of your performance development. In return for your commitment to CPD, your managers will help you to take advantage of training and development opportunities wherever possible. This may include relevant qualifications.
You can also expect both a Departmental-specific induction and a Strategic HR-specific induction when you join us. This will help you understand the purpose of HR and the broader teams. We know there’s a lot to take in, so an existing member of the Casework team will act as your mentor or buddy and provide role-specific training.
Benefits and Rewards
You’ll receive a starting salary of £48,417 plus other benefits including:
- 25 Days Annual Leave automatically rising to 30 days after 5 years' service, and an additional 10.5 days public and privilege holidays.
- Opportunities to be recognised through our employee performance scheme.
- Interest-free season ticket loan.
- Excellent pension scheme.
- Cycle to work scheme.
- Facilities such as a gym, restaurant and on-site coffee bars (at some locations).
- Paid parental and adoption leave.
Equal Opportunities
At GCHQ diversity and inclusion are critical to our mission. To protect the UK, we need a truly diverse workforce that reflects the society we serve. This includes diversity in every sense of the word: those with different backgrounds, ages, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ways of thinking and those with disabilities or neurodivergent conditions. We therefore welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including those from groups that are under-represented in our workforce such as women, those from an ethnic minority background, people with disabilities and those from low socio-economic backgrounds.
Find out more about our culture, working environment and diversity on our website
Disability Confident
GCHQ are proud to have achieved Leader status within the DWP’s Disability Confident scheme. This is aimed at encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people. Being Disability Confident, we aim to offer a person-to-person interview to any candidate who self-identifies as disabled and meets the essential criteria for the role. This is our ‘Offer of Interview’ (OOI). To secure an interview for this vacancy, the essential criteria (in order of application process) are:
- You must have a CIPD Level 5 qualification or significant HR experience, including a detailed practical working knowledge of UK employment law and HR case-handling experience.
What to Expect
Our recruitment process is fair, transparent, and based on merit. Here is a brief overview of each stage, in order:
- Application Sift - looking at your motivation for the role, the organisation and essential criteria
- Interview
- If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment
Please note, you must successfully pass each stage of the process to progress to the next. Your application may take around 6 - 9 months to process including vetting, so we advise you continue any current employment until you have received your final job offer.
Before You Apply
To work at GCHQ, you need to be a British citizen or hold dual British nationality. You can read our full eligibility criteria here.
This role requires the highest security clearance, known as Developed Vetting (DV). It’s something everyone in the UK Intelligence Community undertakes. You can find out more about the vetting process here.
Please note we have a strict drugs policy, so once you start your application, you can’t take any recreational drugs and you’ll need to declare your previous drug usage at the relevant stage.
Before you apply, we advise you to consider setting up a separate email address for your contact with us, to ensure your personal and application correspondence remain separate. Try to avoid having identifying features in your email address, such as your first and/or surname and date of birth. This is good practice and will help you to manage your application with us more discretely.
The role is based in Cheltenham or Manchester, so you’ll need to live within a commutable distance. Please consider any financial implications and practicalities before submitting an application, as we do not offer relocation costs.
Please note, you should only launch your application from within the UK. If you are based overseas, you should wait until you visit the UK to launch an application. Applying from outside the UK will impact on our ability to progress your application. You should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member.
Right to Withdraw Statement:
Please be aware that we withhold the right to bring forward the closing date for this role from the original closing date once a certain number of applications have been received. Please be mindful of this and submit your application at your earliest convenience to avoid disappointment.
