Senior Human Resources Advisor

Quensh - Health & Safety and HR Specialists; Peterhead; On-site; GBP 42,000 - 54,000; Full time

Job summary

Quensh - Health & Safety and HR Specialists in Peterhead seeks a Senior HR Advisor to guide managers and staff through the full employee lifecycle, ensuring compliance with UK employment law and Peterhead Port Authority policies. This is a hands-on, stakeholder-facing role requiring CIPD membership and proven experience across all HR disciplines.

You will advise on recruitment, onboarding, employee relations, performance management, training, and payroll support, maintaining accurate HR records

Qualifications

• CIPD membership or equivalent professional qualification.
• Proven track record across the employee life-cycle including recruitment, onboarding, ER, and training.

Responsibilities

• Guide managers on UK employment legislation and HR best practices.
• Manage recruitment and selection with providers and candidates; conduct interviews and formalise offers.
• Ensure robust onboarding and induction coverage.
• Provide day-to-day HR guidance on sickness absence and return-to-work processes.
• Advise on employee relations, discipline, and grievance handling per policy and law.
• Facilitate performance management processes and address issues timely.
• Coordinate training requests post annual reviews and liaise with training providers.
• Assist with salary review processes and restructures as required.
• Maintain accurate HR records, contracts, and GDPR-compliant data management.
• Support Payroll & HR Administrator with development opportunities.

Skills

CIPD member

Recruitment

Onboarding

Employee relations

Training & development

Policy knowledge

Education

CIPD member status

Job description

The role of Senior HR Advisor will proactively guide and support both managers and employees across the organisation throughout all stages of the employee life-cycle, ensuring compliance with relevant UK employment legislation and Peterhead Port Authority’s (PPA) policies and procedures, and will enhance the employment journey of the organisation’s workforce.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Provide expertise and direction to managers in all areas of HR including the requirements of UK employment legislation.
• Manage the recruitment and selection process by: liaising with both recruitment providers and candidates, preparing for and conducting interviews, guiding managers on interview protocol and formalising offers of employment.
• Ensure the employee on-boarding process is robust and all induction elements covered.
• Provide day-to-day guidance and support to managers and employees on health and well-being matters, including sickness absence management, Occupational Health and return-to-work interviews.
• Provide advice to managers with a pragmatic approach to handling and resolving employee relations matters including capability, disciplinary and grievance in line with the PPA’s policies and procedures and UK employment legislation.
• Provide a facilitation role in the organisation’s performance management process and advise managers in the timely handling of performance issues.
• Prepare a matrix of training requests following the annual performance review meetings, engage with training providers and agree training content and outcomes.
• Involvement in the annual salary review process.
• Assist as required with organisational restructures, employee transfers or redundancies.
• Undertake HR project work and provide ad-hoc reports as required.
• Review, update and maintain Contracts of Employment to comply with UK employment legislation.
• Maintain accurate: electronic employee files, records in the HR database and Integrated.
• Management System to ensure GDPR compliance.
• Maintain current, and develop new, policies and procedures as required to ensure compliance with UK employment legislation.
• Provide guidance and support to the Payroll & HR Administrator with development opportunities as appropriate.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS

• Excellent communication with all internal departments and external providers such as but not limited to: Occupational Health, training, recruitment, legal advisors and employee benefit brokers/insurers.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Qualifications and Experience

• Minimum qualification – member status of Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPD).
• Proven and demonstrable track record in all areas of the employee life-cycle with significant hands-on experience in recruitment & selection, on-boarding, employee relations and training and development.

Skills and Abilities

• Excellent communication skills and proactive approach to building professional relationships across the organisation.
• Proactive, pragmatic and solution-focused mindset.
• Ability to influence and negotiate with all levels both internally and externally.
• Adept in questioning and challenging others with excellent conflict resolution capabilities.
• Ability to coach and guide managers towards effective people and organisational solutions.
• Competent in change initiatives, suggesting ways to improve organisational effectiveness.
• First class planning and organisational skills.
• Ability to manage and organise highly-sensitive data, with strong attention to detail.
• Extensive experience with various HR databases.
• Self-motivated, requiring minimum supervision and guidance, with a strong drive for results.

Knowledge

• Strong knowledge of UK employment legislation with the ability to apply the requirements across all areas of HR to include recruitment & selection, on-boarding, employee relations, training & development and termination.