People Advisor

Spire Healthcare Limited; Washington; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 42,000; Full time

Job summary

Spire Healthcare is seeking an experienced People Advisor to join the Patient Support Centre in Seaham on a full-time permanent basis, 37.5 hours per week. The role focuses on delivering expert HR guidance to colleagues and managers, building strong relationships across levels, and managing multiple priorities.

The ideal candidate will hold Level 5 CIPD or equivalent, with demonstrable HR advisory experience, knowledge of HR systems, and solid understanding of employment laws and processes.

Qualifications

• Experience as a People/HR Advisor or in another HR-based role.
• Knowledge of HR functions and systems.
• Understanding of employment laws and disciplinary / grievance procedures.
• Ability to identify and implement business-focused solutions.
• Aptitude for problem-solving and decision-making, alongside managing complex queries.
• Capability to build strong relationships.
• Strong organisational and time-management skills.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence at all levels.
• Ability to handle confidential information appropriately.

Responsibilities

• Drive workforce planning through regular workforce discussions with hospital SMT.
• Advocate wellbeing tools and channels across the hospital and Spire.
• Actively managing absence and supporting managers in managing absence.
• Provide high quality HR advice in line with policy, procedure, and best practice.
• Support managers in performance management, disciplinary, grievance, attendance, and change.
• Ensure all employee relations issues are handled timely and with fairness and consistency.
• Develop manager capability to implement and manage HR policies.

Skills

HR advisor experience

HR systems knowledge

Employment law knowledge

Problem solving

Stakeholder management

Organisational skills

Communication skills

Confidential information handling

Time management

Education

Level 5 CIPD qualification or equivalent

Job description

Spire Healthcare are looking for an experienced People Advisor to join the team in their Patient Support Centre in Seaham. This is a full time permanent opportunity working 37.5 hours per week

Spire Healthcare is a leading independent healthcare group in the United Kingdom, running 38 hospitals and over 50 clinics across England, Wales and Scotland. It provides diagnostics, inpatient, day case and outpatient care, operates a network of private GPs and provides workplace health services to over 800 corporate clients. It also delivers a range of private and NHS mental health, musculoskeletal and dermatological services

Our People Team is committed to delivering Spire’s purpose – making a positive difference to people’s lives through outstanding personalised care.

As a People Advisor you will provide expert HR advice and guidance to Spire colleagues and managers within the Patient Support Centre to enable everyone to deliver our Purpose on a daily basis.

You will need to build effective relationships at all levels with multiple stakeholders. It’s a varied and busy hands‑on role where you will be expected to manage multiple priorities so organisation and delivering on your promises is key.

Key Responsibilities

• Driving effective workforce planning through regular workforce discussions with the hospital Senior Management Team.
• Being an advocate of wellbeing for the hospital and Spire, promoting all relevant tools, support mechanism, communication channels on a regular basis.
• Actively managing absence within the hospital to reduce short term absence and manage effectively long-term absence. Supporting managers in managing absent colleagues, ensuring the colleague feels supported whilst managing the departmental resource appropriately.
• To provide high quality consistent HR advice in line with Spire policy, procedure, and best practice.
• Supporting managers in performance management processes, disciplinary, grievance issues, attendance matters and change management. Attending where required as HR support for the manager, in such meetings and discussions.
• Ensuring all employee relations issues are managed in a timely manner, prioritising workload. As well as making sure that diversity and equality, fairness and consistency is applied to all discussions, decisions with managers and colleagues, whilst balancing the needs of the business.
• To develop manager capability to implement and manage people policies and procedures

Key Requirements

• Level 5 CIPD Qualification or equivalent
• Demonstrable experience as a People/HR Advisor or in another HR based role.
• Knowledge of HR functions and systems
• An understanding of employment laws and disciplinary / grievance procedures.
• Ability to identify and implement business focused solutions.
• Aptitude for problem‑solving and decision‑making, alongside managing complex queries.
• Capability to build strong relationships.
• Strong organisational skills with ability to prioritise workload.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence at all levels.
• Ability to manage confidential information appropriately.
• High personal standards and quality of work output with outstanding organisational and time-management abilities.

Spire Healthcare is committed to creating an environment that will attract, retain, and motivate its people. We are an equal opportunities employer, committed to the health and wellbeing of all our colleagues and consultants.

We firmly believe that it is our people that make the business successful, and everyone should have the opportunity to work in a motivated team, free from discrimination on any grounds. We, therefore, are keen to receive and review applications from all candidates of under‑represent‑ed groups who feel they offer the requisite skills.

For us, it's more than just treating patients; it's about looking after people.