People Partner

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust; Greater London; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent NHS Trust in Greater London is seeking an experienced HR Business Partner to lead change initiatives and improve workforce experience. You will work closely with senior leaders to design solutions and implement policies while ensuring compliance and fostering a values-driven culture. Ideal candidates will have CIPD qualifications, a proven track record in complex HR transformations, and strong consultation design skills. Join a supportive team focused on delivering effective HR services across a diverse portfolio of care.

Benefits

Flexible/hybrid working

Development opportunities

Staff wellbeing support

Qualifications

• CIPD qualified or equivalent experience required.
• Experience in leading complex change in a large organization preferred.
• Skills in consultation design, organisational change, and workforce transitions needed.

Responsibilities

• Lead change initiatives ensuring compliance and excellent staff experience.
• Design and deliver consultation plans for service redesign.
• Coach senior leaders to enhance change leadership capabilities.

Skills

Leading complex change

Consultation design

Data interpretation

Coaching senior leaders

Employee relations oversight

Project management

Strong communication

Education

CIPD qualified or equivalent

Tools

Excel

Power BI

Job description

Job overview

We’re looking for a strategic, values‑driven HR Business Partner to lead and enable change across our Trust Portfolio. You’ll partner with senior leaders on programmes that reshape services and improve staff experience—covering organisational design, consultations, culture and engagement, workforce planning, and the people implications of transformation (including ER, OD and learning impacts).

You will take responsibility for agreed areas of work and act as an advocate of change and modernisation in support of the Trust and workforce strategies. You will also be required to take the lead on corporate Human Resource issues in a specific area, including policy development, and be responsible for implementation on a Trust wide basis.

You will be highly proactive in extracting a range of data to design solutions whilst building consensus and working with high levels of ambiguity. You will work in partnership with senior leaders to diagnose people requirements and build solutions and programmes of work to meet their local and organisational priorities.

You’ll be a credible coach to leaders, a trusted partner to staff‑side colleagues, and a disciplined project lead who brings clarity, pace and compassion to complex change. If you thrive on turning strategy into practical, people‑centred delivery—and you’re comfortable using data and insight to guide decisions—this is for you.

We are looking for someone who is passionate, with a demonstrable solid track record of working across systems in a large and complex organisation. The People Partner will continually inspire cultural transformation, behaviour change and compassionate leadership.

The role will be based at the Trust Headquarters in London but you will be expected to travel to different sites.

Interviews to take place w/c 26th January 2026

Main duties of the job

What you’ll be doing

• Lead the people workstream for change and transformation initiatives (service redesign, TOMs/OD, mergers/transfers, TUPE where applicable), ensuring legal compliance and excellent staff experience.
• Design and deliver consultation plans, drafting comms/briefing packs, FAQs and implementation schedules; support managers to lead fair and consistent consultations.
• Coach and influence senior leaders, building capability in change leadership, culture, and performance.
• Workforce planning & analytics—turn activity, financial and workforce data into actionable insight; track benefits realisation and risks/mitigations.
• Employee relations oversight for change impacts; ensure timely, high‑quality case triage and learning loops with ER and specialist HR teams.
• Partnership working with staff‑side and staff networks to embed inclusion, fairness and psychological safety throughout transformation.
• Policy and governance—apply AfC, local change and redeployment policies, documenting clear rationales and decisions; contribute to continuous improvement of people policies.
• Enable values‑based culture change—promote civility and respect, wellbeing and the NHS People Promise in all transformation activity.

About you

• CIPD qualified (or equivalent experience), ideally Chartered or working towards.
• A track record of leading complex change in a large, unionised environment (NHS/public sector experience highly regarded).
• Skilled in consultation design, organisational design and workforce transitions (including redeployment/TUPE exposure).
• Data‑confident—able to interpret workforce, activity and financial data; comfortable with Excel/Power BI or similar.
• Inclusive leader with excellent relationship skills; experienced in working with staff‑side and engaging diverse staff groups.
• Strong ER literacy, with sound judgement and the ability to balance compassion with robust governance.
• Practical project skills (plans, RAID, benefits, milestones) and clear, compelling communication.

Working for our organisation

CNWL provide care across the North West London, Milton Keynes and the South East of England. We provide a variety of care including community care, mental health, sexual health, health and justice etc. Being a large Trust covering a variety of services across a large geographical area, HR is a fast paced, busy environment. We are currently undergoing an improvement plan to develop on how we provide our services to support our clinical teams. Our organisation is driven by our strategic objectives and organisational values and we look for people who are strongly aligned with them. We have a great team that work well together.

• A supportive, high‑impact People & Culture team with a clear transformation agenda.
• Access to development (coaching, leadership & change), flexible/hybrid working arrangements, and staff wellbeing support.
• An environment that lives our values and celebrates difference—where your expertise improves care through better work.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please refer to the JD/ PS attached for full details about the role.

• To manage the Associate People Partner(s) and through this to maintain a climate of employee relations that develops feelings of mutuality, encourages co‑operation and minimises the causes and effects of conflict.
• To facilitate good employee relations and expertly advise managers and staff accordingly on good practice. To support managers in effective implementation of the trust’s HR policies up to appeal level and attendance at Employment Tribunal.
• To monitor sickness absence statistics, identifying patterns and trends and highlighting these to management. To enable managers to actively work towards improving attendance targets through managing sickness cases and through other absence management and health improvement initiatives.
• To provide expert advice to managers in highly complex cases on the interpretation and implementation of the Trust’s disciplinary and grievance procedures within the context of the legal framework. To retain oversight of casework, and to line manage the Associate HRBP in the management of specific ER cases.
• To take into account inter‑relational dynamics when dealing with complex staff issues, recommending solutions that may prevent cases escalating to the formal stage, including facilitating meetings and delivering formal mediation.
• To provide training and coaching to managers on HR practices and procedures.
• To use a coaching approach with managers and other HR staff in informally dealing with complex and contentious staffing issues, with the aim of developing skills and confidence and avoiding fostering a relationship of reliance.
• To be the HR representative to disciplinary panels up to the level of dismissal & appeal.

Organisational Change

• To work in partnership with managers in providing expert guidance at all stages of the organisational change process as a key member of the project team, advising on implications for the workforce, involving staff in change processes, formal requirements for consultation and supporting staff through the change process.
• To provide expert advice to managers on the interpretation and implementation of the Trust’s change management processes and procedures, within the context of the legal framework.
• To provide solutions in complex change situations involving competing priorities/legal uncertainties/lack of precedents, ensuring that service delivery aims and financial targets are achieved.
• To take the lead in the implementation of restructuring processes, including the preparation of formal consultation documents, determining appropriate selection principles and methods, facilitating re‑deployment and guiding managers and staff through redundancy situations as appropriate.

Vaccination

The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.

• Due to the high response levels we receive for some vacancies, we may expire any of them prior to the advertised closing date and advise you to submit your application as soon as possible.
• Applications from job seekers who require sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. Before submitting your application and to avoid disappointment please check that you are eligible under the
• Our Agenda for Change employment contracts are subject to a contractual 13 week probationary period.