Senior HR Consultant

Juniper Education • Full-time • Chelmsford, England, United Kingdom • 4d ago

Welcome to Juniper Education, where our mission is to champion educators, empowering them to shape future generations. We're more than just a support system; we're the driving force that propels schools and Academy Trusts to new heights. With our proven school education management systems and services, we address a spectrum of needs, ensuring excellence in education. In the education and tech industry, your work directly influences the lives of students and educators. Whether you're developing cutting-edge educational technology, supporting school leadership teams directly or designing solutions to enhance the learning experience, you could make a lasting and positive impact on the future.

Our mission statement says it all: JoinUp – the right information, to the right person at the right time

Dedicated to our core values, we are committed to:

Empowerment: Equipping everyone with the tools, intelligence, connections, and freedom to make informed decisions, recognised and respected by all.

Purpose: Supporting everyone to reach their highest potential, thereby enabling all children to achieve theirs.

Passion: Because we love what you do, you’re at the heart of everything we do.

Innovation: Delivering meaningful solutions with expertise and creative thinking to influence the ever-changing world of education.

Collaboration: The cornerstone of our success as it enables us to collectively harness diverse perspectives and strengths, ensuring that together, we achieve more than we could ever do alone. Every voice counts!

We’re looking for a Senior HR Consultant to join our Education HR Services team at Juniper Education. This is a varied and influential role where you’ll provide expert HR advice across a portfolio of schools and academies, supporting leaders with complex casework while also helping to shape and develop the HR services we provide.

As a Senior HR Consultant, you will provide expert HR guidance and strategic support a.

This role involves:

Managing case work including complex and high profile cases

Creating/delivering training

Leading on significant HR projects

Ensuring compliance with employment law, education policy, and best practice.

Acting as the primary point of contact for expert HR advice and guidance, ensuring stakeholders and colleagues receive timely, confident, and solutions focused support on a wide range of people matters.

You will act as the central point of expertise for casework, complex queries, and day-to-day HR support, providing guidance and mentoring to colleagues to ensure a consistent, high quality service across all customers.

Key Responsibilities

Provide expert HR advice to school and academy leaders, including guidance on complex and high-risk employee relations casework.

Lead on specialist HR matters including pay, terms and conditions, employment contracts, policy and employment law, ensuring advice reflects legislative requirements and best practice.

Review, develop and maintain model HR policies, procedures and guidance, ensuring customers have access to practical, legally compliant and up-to-date resources.

Consult and engage with external bodies and key stakeholders, including trade unions, local authorities and other professional partners, representing Juniper and customer interests as appropriate.

Design and deliver high-quality HR training, webinars and briefings, keeping customers and colleagues informed of key legislative and sector developments.

Manage key customer and stakeholder relationships, including engagement with senior leaders and attendance at strategic and consultative meetings.

Lead and support HR audits, identifying areas of risk, compliance and improvement and providing practical recommendations to customers.

Provide expert guidance and support to HR colleagues, sharing technical knowledge and promoting a consistent, high-quality approach across the service.

Contribute to the development of HR services, resources and projects, identifying opportunities for continuous improvement and greater efficiency.

Build strong, trusted customer relationships and identify opportunities to promote services and support the continued growth of the HR service.

About You

We’re looking for someone who combines strong technical HR knowledge with excellent consultancy and relationship-building skills.

You’ll ideally have:

Significant experience working in education HR, with strong experience of complex employee relations casework.

In-depth knowledge of employment law and education-specific HR practices.

Experience advising on complex, high-risk or high-profile employee relations matters.

Experience creating and delivering HR training to a range of audiences.

Experience undertaking HR audits and identifying areas of risk and improvement.

Strong stakeholder management, influencing and negotiation skills.

Experience drafting and reviewing HR policies, contracts and guidance.

Experience working with or within local authorities, academies or multi-academy trusts.

An understanding of education pension schemes, including LGPS and Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS).

CIPD Level 5 qualification or equivalent relevant experience (or working towards this).

Interview process

1st stage Interview and assessment (provided to you on the day)

2nd stage telephone call with Head of service

We are committed to a fair and comfortable recruitment process, so if you require any reasonable adjustments during your application or interview process, please reach out to a member of the team at recruitment@junipereducation.org

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