Senior Employee Relations Manager

We’re looking for a highly experienced Senior Employee Relations Manager with deep industrial relations expertise to lead our ER function and ensure the organisation is fully equipped to operate effectively in a unionised environment.

This role is critical in shaping our approach to trade union engagement, collective consultation and employee representation, while also providing expert, commercially grounded advice across complex ER matters and organisational change.

Reporting to the People Director, you will act as our senior IR and ER lead, setting the tone for constructive union relationships, ensuring the ER team is confident and capable in a unionised setting and overseeing all complex casework, TUPE activity and change programmes.

This is a senior, influential role working closely with leaders across the business.

What you’ll be doing

Industrial Relations Leadership

• Leading our approach to working within a unionised environment, ensuring the business and ER team are confident, prepared and aligned


• Building and maintaining strong, constructive relationships with recognised trade unions and employee representative bodies


• Acting as the senior People representative in formal union meetings, negotiations and collective consultation


• Providing strategic advice to senior leaders on union engagement, industrial relations risks and appropriate consultation frameworks

• Owning and overseeing complex ER cases including disciplinaries, grievances, performance, absence, investigations and disputes


• Ensuring outcomes are consistent, fair, legally robust and aligned with our IR commitments


• Coaching leaders and the ER team to manage cases confidently in a unionised context

• Acting as the organisation’s TUPE subject matter expert on inbound and outbound transfers


• Leading due diligence, information and consultation processes, employee transitions and documentation


• Partnering with senior stakeholders on restructures, redundancies and change programmes, ensuring all consultation obligations are met and IR considerations are fully factored in

• Managing and developing HR Advisors, embedding high standards of case management, judgment and decision‑making


• Ensuring the team is fully equipped to operate in a unionised environment, with strong coaching, guidance and continuous improvement


• Driving quality assurance, consistency and capability building across the ER function

• Owning ER policies and procedures, ensuring they remain up to date, relevant and legally compliant


• Maintaining clear ER governance and risk frameworks, with particular focus on IR implications and legal obligations


• Advising the business on employment law, collective consultation requirements and industrial relations risks

Experience and expertise

• Extensive experience managing complex ER casework in a medium or large organisation


• Significant experience operating in a unionised environment, with a strong track record of constructive union engagement


• Proven end‑to‑end TUPE experience


• Experience supporting restructures, consultations and organisational change


• Experience managing or mentoring HR Advisors or ER specialists

• Strong, up‑to‑date knowledge of UK employment legislation and case law


• Deep understanding of TUPE, collective consultation and industrial relations frameworks


• CIPD Level 5 essential (Level 7 desirable)

• Confident, calm and credible with senior stakeholders and union representatives


• Excellent judgment, resilience and integrity


• Strong investigation, report writing and problem‑solving skills


• Collaborative, coaching‑led leadership style with a proactive, solutions‑focused approach

• Non\-contractual 10% annual bonus based on company and personal performance


• 25 days annual leave, increasing to 30 with service \+ bank holidays \+ birthday off


• Company sick pay (6 months full pay, then SSP)


• Enhanced maternity \& paternity pay


• Life assurance x4 salary


• Pension – employer matched up to 7%


• Private Medical Insurance


• 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme


• Retail discounts platform


• Electric Vehicle Salary Sacrifice Scheme

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