HR Business Partner

NHS; Worthing, Chichester, Brighton; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare organization in Worthing is seeking an experienced HR Business Partner to provide strategic HR leadership and support for workforce management. The ideal candidate will have significant experience within the NHS, strong analytical and negotiation skills, and a Master's level qualification in HR. The role involves engaging with divisional leaders to address workforce issues and improve staff engagement while implementing HR initiatives and training.

Benefits

Flexible working options

Comprehensive Wellbeing Programme

Qualifications

• Significant HR Business Partnering experience in the NHS.
• Experience of providing HR support for divisional restructuring.
• Strong understanding of current employment legislation.

Responsibilities

• Provide HR leadership and support to Divisional leads.
• Develop recruitment and retention plans.
• Design and deliver HR training sessions.

Skills

HR advisory expertise

Leadership and support

Analytical skills

Negotiation skills

Education

Masters or equivalent in HR

Job description

University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust (279)

HR Business Partner

The closing date is 16 October 2025

An interesting and exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced HR Business Partner with NHS experience to join our friendly and supportive Human Resources Business Partnering team at University Hospitals Sussex, an acute hospital trust employing c20,000 employees.

Main duties of the job

You must be able to demonstrate your experience of providing professional senior HR advice, leadership and support to Trust leaders. The role requires that you have substantial experience of resolving complex workforce issues, building staff engagement, and supporting the achievement of divisional workforce plans.

You will need a good working knowledge of current employment legislation, and experience of providing HR support for staffing restructures. Excellent negotiating, influencing, communication and IT skills are required. Experience of analysing workforce data and engaging with leaders to develop workforce and staff engagement plans will be a key requirement.

There will be opportunities to support corporate HR projects, acquire improvement methodology knowledge and experience, and to develop and deliver training sessions.

This role may be based at either our Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, Worthing Hospital or St Richards Hospital, Chichester, sites, to match the allocated divisions. Some travel will be required across all hospital sites dependent on team and divisional requirements. Although the role is office based, part-week home working will be considered dependent on service needs.

About us

At UHSussex, diversity is our strength, and we want you to feel included to help us always put the Patient First. Your uniqueness and experiences will be part of our creative and innovative community where everyone is encouraged to succeed. We have a range of Staff Networks to help break down barriers, and can offer a buddy to help new members settle in. We're proud to be a Disability Confident Employer (Level 2) and a Veteran Aware Trust.

We treat our patients and staff with the same compassion and empathy we expect for ourselves. We're here for them when they need us, and we go above and beyond to meet their needs. This can be seen in ourWellbeing Programme for staff which is extensive and designed to support you when you need it, including where possible, flexible working to support work life balance - because we know that to look after others we must first look after ourselves.

As a university trust and a leader in healthcare research, we value learning, teaching and training so that we can be the best that we can be. From the moment you start with us and throughout your career we will help you to grow and develop. We hope that in choosing UHSussex you are choosing a long and happy career where you will be able to see the difference you make and feel valued for all that you do.

We look forward to receiving your application and the start of your journey with UHSussex.

Job responsibilities

1. Provide professional and customer-focussed HR leadership, advice and support to Divisional leads and managers to help improve and support staff engagement, address workforce issues, enhance patient care and efficiencies, and achieve divisional and people objectives.
2. Influence and support the strategic direction of the Division by providing expert HR advice and workforce information at a Divisional level to help facilitate the Divisions achievement of their Workforce KPIs. For example, developing effective recruitment and retention plans, improving sickness absence management levels or reducing bank and agency expenditure. Provide HRBP analysis and reports monthly or as required with a focus on addressing hotspot areas effectively and efficiently.
3. Lead on providing professional senior HR support and coaching to improve divisional staff engagement/staff survey results, resolve workforce issues and improve people workforce metrics.
4. Lead on specific HR projects to enable the Trust to deliver workforce initiatives, maintaining up-to-date knowledge of employment and work development/thinking within the NHS, related current and planned employment legislation, adopting good practices.
5. Design and deliver HR training sessions as required to improve manager awareness and capability on a range of issues and to support the roll-out of HR initiatives.
6. Contribute to the formulation and implementation of HR policies and procedures; Research and writing of HR policies and toolkits/guidance/standard operating procedure documents as required. HRBPs may have allocated standard operating procedures to review/maintain in line with legislation, learning, or agreed changes in practice.
7. -- Please see job description & person specs for full details.

Person Specification

• Educated to a Masters or equivalent level in an HR related subject
• Significant HR Business Partnering experience of addressing workforce issues in the NHS
• Experience of providing HR support for divisional restructuring exercises
• Analysis of staffing data and lead design of people related improvement plans
• Experience of utilising service improvement methodology eg Kaizen
• Demonstrates an understanding of current issues within the NHS

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

• Evidence of having championed diversity in previous roles (as appropriate to role).
• Evidence of having undertaken own development to improve understanding of equalities issues

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.

University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust (279)