Group HR Absence Management Lead

NHS; Middlesbrough; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

An exciting opportunity for a Group HR Absence Management Lead at a leading NHS trust. The role focuses on managing sickness absence, providing guidance to managers, and developing HR initiatives. Ideal candidates will have strong HR knowledge and experience in complex case management.

Benefits

Leadership and Improvement Training

Opportunities for further training

Qualifications

• Significant experience of providing complex HR advice.
• Experience in managing complex absence cases.

Responsibilities

• Support the management of sickness absence across the Group.
• Develop effective working relationships with unions and colleagues.

Skills

Communication

Interpersonal Skills

Self-Motivation

Education

HR / Employment Law Degree

Professional HR Qualification

Job description

Go back South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Group HR Absence Management Lead

The closing date is 15 May 2025

This post is for internal candidates to University Hospitals Tees. If you are not currently working within the South Tees NHS Foundation Trust or North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, your application will not be reviewed and automatically rejected at shortlisting stage. Please be aware of this when submitting your application.

We have an exciting opportunity for a Group HR Absence Management Lead to proactively support the management of sickness absence across the Group. working across South Tees and North Tees

The postholder will report to the Group ER Business Partner or HRBP and will work as part of a small specialist team, with a specific focus on absence management. They will adopt a support and drive absence case management and will provide robust guidance to managers to ensure absence is proactively managed and individual action plans and interventions are implemented.

Main duties of the job

Working as part of the wider HR Team, the successful candidate will develop effective working relationships with colleagues from unions and professional bodies and will absence management initiatives across the Trust.

The successful candidate will demonstrate HR knowledge acquired through HR / Employment Law Degree or through relevant training and experience to degree level. They will have experience of managing complex HR case work, and particular experience in managing complex absence cases.

The successful candidate will demonstrate effective communication and interpersonal skills, self-motivation and a focus on a focus on key performance objectives and will need to be able to develop excellent relationships with a variety of key stakeholders across the Group.

This is a challenging and exciting time to join the NHS, and the successful candidate will be supported by their management team to complete team and individual objectives, including regular opportunities for communication, welfare discussions, sharing of information and team development. The team is currently working to an office rota, where time is spent working both on site and remotely.

If you would like an exciting, dynamic, and vibrant opportunity and would like to contribute to the fantastic efforts of the NHS then this role is for you.

About us

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust offers leadership and improvement training to all new staff. This training programme has been designed to support our leaders in developing their understanding of leadership and management skills. You will be expected to attend the following training sessions

Leading your Team to Success

Leading Into the Future

Service Improvement for Beginners

Developing your Service Improvement Skills

The leadership and improvement programme aims to:

Explore leadership within the NHS

Promote Trust values and behaviours

Develop your leadership effectiveness and skills

Equip staff with the necessary knowledge and skills to lead and complete service improvements within the scope of your role.

After you complete these six and a half days of training you will be able to explore further leadership and improvement training opportunities. We also offer a range of additional in-house and externally provided

courses and bitesize programmes through our Leadership and Improvement Team.

Job responsibilities

Please see the full job description and person specification document(s) attached for main responsibilities of the role.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Specialist HR knowledge acquired through degree and professional HR qualification or equivalent level of training, experience and knowledge to Master's level.

Experience

• Significant experience of providing complex / highly complex HR Advice to managers and staff
• Working in partnership with Trade Unions.
• Experience and involvement in advising on complex/highly complex absence issues.
• Experience of writing and interpreting employment policy, e.g. recruitment, disciplinary, grievance, sickness management.
• Skills to effectively analyse data and information and develop actions plans to meet Trust needs.

Knowledge

• Strong knowledge of best practice HR initiatives, trade union partnerships and negotiation, consultation and influencing strategies with an ability to apply these throughout the Trust.
• Strong knowledge of project management, research methodology and business case development.
• Knowledge of internal service level agreements, KPIs and performance reporting standards.
• Strong understanding of relevant employment legislation and the impact of future legislative changes.
• Specific interest in Health and Wellbeing initiatives and knowledge of case law in relation to managing absence

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer name

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust