HR Assistant

Howden Group Holdings; Milton Keynes; Hybrid; GBP 26,000 - 38,000; Full time

Job summary

Howden Group Holdings is seeking an HR Shared Services professional to deliver excellent, client-focused HR support across the employee lifecycle. You will act as the Workday HR advocate, guiding staff, promoting self-service and ensuring timely payroll data and accuracy.

You’ll collaborate with HR centres of excellence, payroll and recruitment to streamline processes and support growth. The role requires strong organisational and interpersonal skills, resilience under pressure, and the ability

Qualifications

• Delivery-focused and able to prioritise client experience.
• Self-motivated with a positive attitude.
• Strong relationship building and influencing skills.
• Works well under pressure to meet deadlines.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Team player who learns quickly.
• Workday and HR Shared Services experience desirable.
• Ability to work independently with confidence.
• Strong organisational, communication and interpersonal skills.
• Problem solver with resilience and initiative.
• Proactive and able to build trust.

Responsibilities

• Provide a client focused HR service across the employee lifecycle, delivering a great experience to our people.
• Work as an advocate and expert on Workday HR, guiding and supporting people, whilst promoting self service capability.
• Follow up actions and ongoing enquiries, ensuring processes are completed to a high standard and in time for payroll cut off.
• Collaborate with HR colleagues to drive consistency and gain efficiencies.
• Work with Recruitment to manage applicant through to new starter process and provide a great candidate experience.
• Collaborate with group HR centres of excellence, HRBP, reward, change, payroll and HRIS teams.
• Validate data, ensure job details are correct (roles, teams, cost centres).
• Make decisions on prioritisation to meet service delivery expectations.
• Work within GDPR guidelines and manage data requests/confidentiality.
• Contribute to wider HR projects, driving process improvements and automation.
• Ensure cases are completed correctly and timely for payroll.

Skills

Delivery focus

Self-motivated

Relationship building

Workday experience

Interpersonal skills

Job description

Who are we?

Howden is a global insurance group with employee ownership at its heart. Together, we have pushed the boundaries of insurance. We are united by a shared passion and no-limits mindset, and our strength lies in our ability to collaborate as a powerful international team comprised of 24,000 employees spanning over 56 countries. People join Howden for many different reasons, but they stay for the same one: our culture. It’s what sets us apart, and the reason our employees have been turning down headhunters for years. Whatever your priorities – work / life balance, career progression, sustainability, volunteering – you’ll find like-minded people driving change at Howden. Here at Howden Group Holdings, we are transforming the way we deliver HR services to our business and this is an exciting time to join our evolving HR function as we look to drive commercially aligned and strategic HR support to our stakeholders. This is an exciting opportunity to deliver first class HR Services support to our UK businesses, providing first line HR support to a fast-growing and transformational business.

What you’ll be doing

• Provide a client focused HR service across the employee lifecycle, delivering a great experience to our people.
• Working as an advocate and expert on Workday HR, guiding and supporting people, whilst promoting self service capability.
• Responsible for follow up actions and ongoing enquiries, ensuing processes are completed to a high standard and in time for payroll cut off.
• Works closely with colleagues within HRES to drive consistency across the business, improve processes and gain efficiencies.
• Works with the Recruitment team to ensure the applicant through to new starter process is managed efficiently and provides a great candidate experience.
• Working collaboratively with the group HR centres of excellences, HRBP, reward, change, payroll, learning and HRIS teams.
• Validates data, ensures job details are correct, such as roles, teams and cost centres.
• Make appropriate decisions and use own judgement on work prioritisation ensuring expectations on service delivery can be met.
• Works within GDPR guidelines, managing people data requests and the confidentiality of data.
• Contributes to wider projects and initiatives within HR, driving process improvements, automation and efficiencies.
• Ensures cases and requests are completely correctly and in time for payroll.

What are we looking for

• Delivery focused and able to demonstrate putting client experience first.
• Self-motivated with a positive attitude.
• Strong relationship building and influencing skills.
• Works well under pressure to meet deadlines whilst managing conflicting demands.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Team player with the ability to learn quickly.
• Workday and HR Shared Services experience desirable.
• Ability to work well independently with confidence.
• Strong organisational, communication and interpersonal skills.
• Problem solver with resilience, initiative and ability to challenge the status quo.
• Smart pragmatic and positive approach, able to build trust and offer proactive solutions.
• Workday and HR Shared Services experience desirable.

What do we offer in return

A career that you define. At Howden, we value diversity – there is no one Howden type. Instead, we’re looking for individuals who share the same values as us: Our successes have all come from someone brave enough to try something new. We support each other in the small everyday moments and the bigger challenges. We are determined to make a positive difference at work and beyond. Reasonable adjustments. We're committed to providing reasonable accommodations at Howden to ensure that our positions align well with your needs. Besides the usual adjustments such as software, IT, and office setups, we can also accommodate other changes such as flexible hours* or hybrid working*.

*Not all positions can accommodate changes to working hours or locations.

Permanent

Howden began in 1994, as just three people and a dog. Now there are 23,000 of us, and we're a leading global insurance group, managing $37bn of premiums for our clients. Our largest shareholder group is us – the people who work in the business – supported by three long-term, minority growth-equity partners who share our vision to build a business to last, one that will never be sold. The owner's mindset is something that's embedded in our culture; our people readily take ownership of their decisions, their actions, and their outputs. They’re invested in every sense. And we all know that by working together to drive the business forward, everyone will benefit from the extraordinary results we can achieve.