Senior People and Culture Lead

HCRG Care Group; Leeds; Remote; GBP 55,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading community health service provider in the UK seeks a Senior People & Culture Lead to drive cultural transformation and support regional directors. The ideal candidate will have a strong HR background, ideally CIPD Level 7, with the ability to influence senior leadership and embed change. This role offers a competitive salary package and requires national travel to various services across England.

Benefits

£55,000 - £60,000 salary with group pension

Private medical insurance

Access to discounts through My Reward Hub

Access to paid wages

Mental and physical wellbeing support

Continued professional development opportunities

Qualifications

• CIPD Level 7 qualified (or equivalent experience) with strong knowledge of employment legislation, organisational development, and workforce planning.
• Experienced Senior HR Business Partner or OD leader with a proven track record of partnering with senior stakeholders.
• Skilled in embedding change and ensuring capability building.
• Highly confident in building manager and leadership capability, particularly around absence management and performance.
• Adept at using people data and insights to influence decision-making and link practices to service KPIs.
• Strong communicator and influencer, able to build trust with diverse leadership styles.

Responsibilities

• Act as a strategic partner to Regional Directors, ensuring people strategies support operational goals.
• Develop tailored people plans aligned with organisational strategies and local priorities.
• Embed organisational change and build management capability.
• Champion a positive and inclusive culture, using data to drive decision-making.

Job description

Overview

At HCRG Care Group, we believe our people are at the heart of delivering excellent care and driving sustainable change. We’re looking for two exceptional Senior People & Culture Leads to join us at a pivotal time. This role combines the scope of a senior HR business partner with the influence to shape culture and capability across diverse services. You will work closely with Regional Directors, building trusted partnerships, embedding recent transformation programmes, and helping managers develop the skills and confidence they need to deliver consistently high‑performing services.

No two days will look the same. One week you might be in Surrey, supporting leaders in our prison healthcare services; the next in Essex, helping managers link absence management, agency use, and service performance. You’ll also shape the people strategy for our sexual health services, including the integration of SH24.

Although the role is remote-based, regular travel and visibility across the regions are required. You’ll thrive on variety, enjoy being out in services, and know that real cultural change happens when leaders are supported, present, and accountable.

This is not about policy writing or transactional HR. It’s about influence, coaching, and impact. You’ll create people plans tailored to each region, use data and insights to shape decision‑making, and ensure that change sticks long after the project team has moved on.

If you are a seasoned HR professional with credibility to influence senior leaders, resilience to navigate complex environments, and the drive to make a tangible difference, this is your opportunity to join us and leave a lasting mark on colleagues, services, and communities.

Main Responsibilities

• Act as a strategic partner to Regional Directors, building trusted relationships and ensuring people strategies directly support operational and service delivery goals.
• Develop and deliver tailored people plans for each region, aligned with organisational strategy, KPIs, and local priorities.
• Embed organisational change—ensuring that recent transformation programmes are sustained, capability is built, and managers feel confident in leading new ways of working.
• Coach and support managers to strengthen leadership capability, particularly in areas such as absence management, performance management, and employee engagement.
• Create clear links between people data and business outcomes, helping leaders understand how areas such as absence, agency usage, and retention impact both cost and service quality.
• Champion a positive and inclusive culture, using colleague voice, surveys, and engagement tools to identify issues and co‑create solutions with managers and teams.
• Provide visible presence across services, regularly travelling to sites and attending leadership and team meetings to offer hands‑on support and guidance.
• Use data and insights to inform decision‑making, identify people risks, and recommend pragmatic solutions that balance commercial and colleague needs.
• Work collaboratively with centres of excellence within the wider People team, ensuring policies, practices, and initiatives are consistently applied and adapted for local needs.
• Promote equality, diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing across all people practices, creating environments where colleagues feel supported, engaged, and able to thrive.
• Contribute to organisational performance by tracking ROI on people initiatives, ensuring people practices add value to both colleagues and service delivery.

The Ideal Candidate

We’re looking for someone who can bring both credibility and pragmatism - a trusted partner who can balance strategic thinking with a hands‑on approach to building capability and embedding change.

You will be:

• An experienced Senior HR Business Partner / OD leader with a proven track record of partnering senior stakeholders to deliver people strategies that drive performance and culture.
• CIPD Level 7 qualified (or equivalent experience), with strong knowledge of employment legislation, organisational development, and workforce planning.
• Skilled in embedding change - not just delivering transformation projects, but ensuring changes are sustained through capability building, coaching, and cultural alignment.
• Highly confident in building manager and leadership capability, particularly around absence management, performance, engagement, and succession planning.
• Adept at using people data and insights to influence decision‑making, spot risks, and link people practices to service KPIs (e.g. absence rates, agency spend, staff survey outcomes).
• A strong communicator and influencer, able to build trust quickly with Regional Directors and senior managers with very different leadership styles.
• Comfortable with regular national travel and maintaining a visible presence across services - you’ll know that sometimes the most meaningful impact happens in team meetings, on‑site with leaders, and in the moments where you can challenge and support face‑to‑face.
• Commercially astute, with the ability to balance organisational goals, colleague wellbeing, and service user needs.
• A values‑driven leader who champions inclusion, wellbeing, and engagement, creating the conditions where people can thrive.
• Resilient and adaptable, thriving in a complex and changing environment, and able to “connect the dots” across multiple services and priorities.

This is a fantastic role for someone who wants to go beyond traditional HR and truly shape culture, capability, and leadership in services that make a difference to communities across the UK.

Package Description

As a Senior People and Culture Lead, you’ll be part of our valued team at HCRG Care Group. You will feel valued as a Senior People and Culture Lead within HCRG Care Group, receiving access to exclusive rewards and benefits including:

• £55,000 - £60,000 with group pension
• Private medical insurance with fast access to the most used specialists including for musculoskeletal problems and for mental health support – at locations across the country
• Membership of My Reward Hub, giving you access to discounts on everyday purchases and cashback/voucher offers
• Access to your wages as you earn them to help cover life’s emergencies
• Online and face to face help with your mental and physical wellbeing – from healthy recipes and activity challenges to post trauma support, legal, debt and life management help, as well as career coaching and counselling
• Access to eLearning, bespoke career pathways and opportunities for continuing professional development through our learning team, The Learning Enterprise
• An open, just culture where you’re encouraged to have and implement ideas to help us deliver our purpose, backed by ringfenced innovation funding
• The pride of working for an organisation committed to high clinical and quality standards, with most services rated good or outstanding by the Care Quality Commission

About The Company

We change lives by transforming health and care. Established in 2006, we are one of the UK\u2019s leading independent providers of community health and care services, working with health and care commissioners and communities to transform services with a focus on experience, efficiency, and improved outcomes. We deliver and transform adult and children community health services, primary care services including urgent care, sexual health, dermatology and MSK services, as well as adult social care and wellbeing services. Across England, we support communities of many millions and directly help more than half a million people each year - guided by our simple values: we care, we think, we do.

We’re committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from a broad, diverse range of people. We’re a Disability Confident Committed company, providing facilities and adjustments to be as inclusive as possible.

We may close the role earlier than the stated date if it becomes very popular. If you’re keen to join our team, please apply as soon as you can.

Safeguarding and protecting the children, young people and vulnerable adults we work with is paramount. We have policies and procedures to promote safeguarding and safer working practices, and everyone who joins is subject to a safer recruitment process, including disclosure of criminal records and vetting checks.

Finally, the company you’ll work for is part of HCRG Care Group Holdings Limited. By applying, we’ll process and hold information about you. For more information about how we use your information, please see our website’s privacy policy.

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