Head of HR
Location: Oxford (4 days office-based, 1 day working from home, with occasional travel)Salary: £75,000 - £85,000 per annum
About the Role
Robert Half are working with a well-established organisation in Oxford to recruit a Head of HR. This is a key leadership role responsible for delivering a pragmatic and effective people strategy that supports business performance, operational excellence, and employee engagement.
Working closely with senior leaders, you will provide both strategic direction and hands-on operational HR leadership. The successful candidate will be comfortable operating in a fast-paced environment, balancing day-to-day people challenges with longer-term organisational priorities.
Alongside leading the people agenda, you will play a key role in driving continuous improvement across the HR function, reviewing and enhancing processes, systems, and ways of working to ensure the team delivers an efficient, commercially focused service that meets the needs of the business.
This role would particularly suit an HR leader who has experience supporting large blue-collar workforces within sectors such as retail, manufacturing, logistics, travel, transportation, distribution, or other operationally focused environments.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the HR function, ensuring the delivery of a professional, commercially focused people service across the organisation.
- Partner with senior stakeholders to develop and implement people strategies aligned to business objectives.
- Take ownership of complex employee relations matters, providing expert guidance and ensuring consistent application of policy and best practice.
- Coach and support managers at all levels, building leadership capability and confidence in people management.
- Drive workforce planning, talent management, and succession planning initiatives.
- Lead organisational change and transformation projects where required.
- Identify opportunities to improve HR processes, policies, systems, and reporting, driving greater efficiency and consistency across the employee lifecycle.
- Champion continuous improvement within the HR function, ensuring services are scalable, customer-focused, and aligned to business needs.
- Use people data and insights to identify trends, inform decision-making, and support operational performance.
- Manage, mentor, and develop a small central HR team, fostering a high-performance and customer-focused culture.
- Ensure compliance with employment legislation and HR best practice.
About You
- Proven experience in a senior HR leadership role, ideally as a Head of HR, Senior HR Business Partner, HR Manager, or similar.
- Strong operational HR background with the ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on delivery.
- Significant employee relations expertise, including managing complex and sensitive cases.
- Experience coaching, developing, and influencing managers across all levels of an organisation.
- Demonstrable experience leading and developing HR teams.
- A track record of improving HR processes, implementing change, and driving operational efficiencies.
- Strong understanding of UK employment law and HR best practice.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
- Experience supporting large, dispersed, blue-collar workforces is highly desirable.
- Background within sectors such as retail, manufacturing, logistics, travel, transportation, distribution, warehousing, or other operational environments would be advantageous.
What's on Offer
- Salary of £75,000-£85,000
- Hybrid working pattern of 4 days in the office and 1 day working from home.
- A highly visible leadership role with significant influence across the organisation.
- The opportunity to shape and drive the people agenda within a complex operational environment.
- The chance to support HR transformation and process improvement initiatives that deliver tangible business impact.
- A supportive leadership team and the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to organisational performance, culture, and leadership capability.
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