Job Title: Senior Employee Relations Care Advisor  

Starting: ASAP 

Duration: 3 months and could be longer   

Hours: Monday to Friday, 9 – 5.30  

Location: Croydon, South London 

Band: 6 

Pay:  £18.45ph – £21.81h PAYE 

£20.68ph - £24.44ph PAYE Inclusive of Holiday Pay 

Job Summary: 

The post holder will play an integral role in delivering a comprehensive, high quality and pro-active educational and operational employee relations advisory and support service to managers and staff within the Trust

Duties:

• Ensuring that standards and objectives for the Employee Relations service are met and are consistent with Trust policy, best practice and employment law
• Being part of the upskilling of line managers by creating and delivering briefing sessions for line managers on HR policies and processes
• Work with staff side colleagues to ensure that there is a shared understanding of policiesand procedures working and review across the Trust
• Supporting all staff and managers with dignity regardless of the case supporting individuals from the point of raising a concern and opening a formal case right up to exits from the Trust (including dismissals and medical retirements) 
• Supporting the Senior ER Advisors and ER Manager to collate any case material needed for appeals raised against stage three hearings, and attend to support the manager during these hearings
• To use ESR sickness data when managing short and long term sickness cases, to be able to provide information to staff and managers when approaching half or nil pay
• To monitor and ensure long term sickness absence cases which go beyond 12 months absence pay is reinstated at half 
• To take a leading HR role on Flexible Working applications and appeals, supporting managers to review the particular impacts any flexible working application may have to both the individual and the service
• Ensure advice is provided to enable Managers to make appropriate decisions when considering refusal of applications
• Provide advice and first level support to managers and staff on aspects of employee relations including DBS, Professional Registration, conduct issues and other matters, whilst keeping the relevant Senior ER Advisor updated, escalating to the ER Manager or Head of Strategic ER where necessary
• Provide advice, coaching and guidance to managers to support them to undertake successful informal resolution meetings
• Support the ER Administrators with the collation of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for information, liaising with directorate managers as required to ensure information provided is accurate and in a timely manner, recognising the sensitive and confidential nature of information held by the HR team
• To be confident running reports and analysing complex and highly sensitive data relating to individuals employment, spotting trends and patterns to identify potential interventions and improvements needed
• Submit monthly reports to the payroll liaison team with details of open-ended long-term sickness cases, in order to help minimise any incorrect overpayments
• Be able to give advise on cases such as a:

1. Management of Sickness Absence
2. Disciplinary
3. Grievance
4. Harassment and Bullying
5. Performance management – capability
6. Investigations best practice
7. Employment Tribunal preparation

• Supporting to resolve issues as informally as possible or ensuring that the formal processes are carried out in line with HR Policy and procedure
• Supporting line managers and formal hearing panels up to and including dismissal hearing panels
• Encourage and support robust sickness management strategies with the Case Management Team which supports staffs health and wellbeing and reduces the time they are off sick and are supported through the process and on their return to work
• Work and prepare line managers to attend formal hearings and present their management cases
• Support new managers at formal hearings to present their case if and where appropriate
• Play a lead role in conjunction with HR Business Partners on consultation and restructuring
• processes including advice regarding redundancy
• Where appropriate provide support to line managers in the handling of redeployment and redundancy processes including support to conduct 1 - 1 consultation meetings and provide written communication to affected employees ensuring that all rights and entitlements in an ‘at risk’ situation are advised and maintained
• Compile reports for any of the Trust’s senior management teams on HR/ER activity highlighting any areas of concern in conjunction with the relevant HR Business Partner
• To evaluate the effectiveness and impact of employee relations initiatives and interventions with regular engagement sessions for staff
• Support the Head of Strategic Employee Relations to develop a restorative approach to employee relations
• To organise on-going support for managers and staff on any employee relations or HR Initiatives to ensure their they receive the training and tools to fulfil their duties to support staff as appropriate

Essential Experience: 

• Experience working as a senior employee relations care advisor of an NHS Trust 
• Experience working on a band 6 level 
• At least 3 years NHS experience 
• Able to advise managers on complex ER queries 
• Evidence of continued personal development within a similar role 
• Experience having updating and altered HR policies and procedures
• Familiar with electronic HR reporting and recording systems and producing reports as required

Desirable Experience: 

• CIPD qualified 
• Having managed a team 
• Coaching experience
• Smart card holder 
• Experience using ESR 
• Experience using ER Tracker

Person Specification: 

• Excellent communication skills both over the phone, via email and face to face
• Excellent attention to detail
• Ability to deal with very sensitive information 
• Motivated and enthusiastic team player 
• Ability to act on own initiative 
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Excellent knowledge of patient confidentiality