People Strategy and Delivery Lead

McLaren Automotive Ltd; Woking; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday

Private medical insurance

Life assurance

Discretionary annual bonus

Pension scheme

Wellbeing programme

Employee assistance programme

Job summary

McLaren Automotive is seeking a strategic Head of People Operations & Strategy to convert the People Strategy into executable plans and drive delivery across the organisation. It owns the full People portfolio and governs cross-functional delivery.

You will lead governance, planning cadences and weekly reporting to ensure measurable outcomes and business value from both strategic and BAU work.

Qualifications

• Demonstrable experience building project plans and delivering end-to-end strategy execution.
• Experience designing project and governance frameworks from scratch.
• Track record running strategic and operational portfolios.
• Strong measurement discipline with baselines and tracking benefits after implementation.
• Excellent organisational and planning skills with ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills.
• Strong analytical capability to turn data into practical recommendations.
• Excellent written communication and commercial awareness of how a People function creates value.

Responsibilities

• Build delivery plans for each People Strategy priority with milestones, owners and success measures.
• Drive delivery to completion: chair project reviews, remove blockers, escalate when risk rises.
• Maintain a single consolidated view of the People portfolio with progress, risks and dependencies.
• Hold project owners to account for commitments under the Head of People Operations & Strategy.
• Design, build and own the project delivery framework for the People Function.
• Set standard governance and run portfolio reviews and planning sessions.
• Own the annual People planning calendar including pay review and benefits cycles.
• Apply the same framework to BAU projects and balance portfolio demands.
• Identify interdependencies across strategic initiatives and BAU work.

Skills

Strategy execution

Programme management

HR function

Governance design

Portfolio management

Measurement discipline

Organisational planning

Stakeholder management

Analytical thinking

Written communication

Commercial awareness

Job description

What to Expect

Reporting to the Head of People Operations & Strategy, this role converts the People Strategy into executable plans and delivers them. Where the strategy sets direction, this role builds the project plans, the frameworks that govern them and the measures that prove they worked, then sees them through to completion. It is accountable for the outcome, not only for the coordination.

The role owns the full People portfolio: the strategic priorities that move the function forward and the business-as-usual projects that keep it running. It works across every People pillar, holds a single weekly view of delivery across both, and brings structure, pace and measurable outcomes to a function that needs to plan ahead rather than react.

What You'll Do

Turning Strategy into Delivery

• Build and own the delivery plan for each People Strategy priority - scope, milestones, owners, dependencies, resource and success measures - agreed before work begins.
• Drive delivery through to completion: chair project reviews, remove blockers, and escalation early where a milestone or benefit is at risk.
• Maintain a single consolidated view of the People portfolio, covering progress, risks, dependencies and delivery confidence.
• Hold project owners to account for the commitments they have made, with the visible mandate of the Head of People Operations & Strategy and the People Leadership Team.

Building the Project Frameworks

• Design, build and own the project delivery framework for the People Function: initiation and business case templates, stage gates, RAID logs, benefits tracking, closure and lessons learned.
• Set the standard once and apply it consistently, so every project in the function is initiated, planned, tracked and closed the same way regardless of which pillar owns it.
• Establish and run the governance that sits above the framework, including People Leadership Team meetings, strategic planning sessions and portfolio reviews, capturing actions and tracking them to completion.
• Own and manage the annual People planning calendar so that cyclical activity - pay review, benefits renewal, engagement survey, performance cycle - is planned, resourced and sequenced well in advance.

Business-as-Usual Delivery

• Apply the same framework, measures and reporting discipline to business-as-usual projects - system changes, policy rollouts, process redesign, compliance and audit work - as to strategic priorities.
• Balance the two portfolios and make the trade-offs visible where BAU demand and strategic ambition compete for the same people and the same weeks.
• Identify and manage interdependencies between strategic initiatives, BAU projects and cyclical activity across all People pillars.

Measurement and Reporting

• Ensure no project enters the portfolio without agreed measures of success and a baseline captured at initiation.
• Track benefits beyond go-live and report whether the intended outcome was actually achieved, rather than closing a project at implementation.
• Produce a weekly delivery report across the full portfolio, covering status, RAG rating, milestones achieved, risks, blockers and the decisions required.
• Build and maintain the reporting tools that make delivery performance visible without manual rework each week.

Connecting the People Function

• Act as the connective point across all People pillars - reward, payroll and benefits, talent and resourcing, learning and development, employee relations, People systems and data, and culture and engagement.
• Ensure activity across specialist teams is aligned, sequenced and mutually reinforcing, rather than competing for the same stakeholders in the same weeks.
• Promote a proactive approach to planning and execution, reducing reactive working across the function.

What You'll Bring

Skills And Experience

• Demonstrable experience of building project plans and delivering them end to end, in strategy execution, programme management, business management or transformation - ideally within an HR or People function.
• Experience designing project and governance frameworks from scratch, not only operating within someone else's.
• A track record of running strategic and operational portfolios side by side, holding pace on both.
• Strong measurement discipline: defining success measures, setting baselines and tracking benefits after implementation.
• Exceptional organisational and planning skills, with the ability to hold multiple priorities and a weekly reporting rhythm without dropping either.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the confidence to hold senior leaders to their commitments.
• Strong analytical capability, with the ability to turn data, insight and external trends into practical recommendations and clear reporting.
• Excellent written communication, presentation and briefing skills, and commercial awareness of how a People function creates value for the business.

Personal Attributes

• Highly organised, and naturally able to bring structure to complexity.
• Proactive and delivery-focused, with a strong bias for action and a finisher's instinct.
• Curious and externally focused, continually looking for better ways to work.
• Collaborative and approachable, able to build credibility quickly across specialist teams.
• Resilient and confident in constructively challenging others to maintain progress.

What We'll Do for You

We offer a wide - ranging benefits package, which includes:

• Structured career development framework
• 25 days' holiday, plus bank holiday. Annual buy & sell up to five days
• Enhanced company pension scheme
• Discretionary annual bonus award
• Private medical insurance and health cash plan
• Life assurance benefit
• Ability to apply for a sabbatical of up to one year after only two years' service
• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping
• Generous parental leave policies
• A range of wellbeing initiatives, such as employee assistance programme and free financial & mortgage advice

Who Are We?

No restraints. No limitations. We don’t simply push boundaries. We completely rethink them. McLaren Automotive exists to create breath-taking performance road cars.

It takes a community to do what we do. A diverse group of people with many areas of expertise, united by their passion to deliver visionary products and set new benchmarks.

McLaren Automotive commits to equal opportunity for all. Diversity, Equality and Inclusion is at the heart of our impact, it drives our innovation and enables us to truly create something special. Join us on our journey.