Employee Relations Business Partner - Specified Purpose Contract

Marks and Spencer; Dublin; On-site; EUR 65,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

Marks and Spencer in Ireland seeks an Employee Relations Business Partner to manage ER and IR issues and contribute to major HR projects. The role focuses on designing and delivering ER strategies, building strong union partnerships and guiding policy implementation within ROI.

The candidate will collaborate with ROI People Partners and M&S UK CoEs to ensure compliant, effective change programmes and proactive colleague engagement across the island of Ireland.

Responsibilities

• Help design, deliver and lead ROI's employee relations and change strategies.
• Develop and maintain relationships with Unions to enable proactive partnership and engagement.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to create toolkits, training interventions and upskilling for managers.
• Provide ER advice into business change programmes, coordinating with ROI People Partners and UK CoEs as needed.
• Develop ROI policies and processes to be lawful, practical and aligned with future business needs.
• Ensure policy changes are communicated, tested and supported with training.
• Monitor ROI employment law changes and benchmark against best practice.
• Lead ER projects end-to-end from design to post-implementation review.
• Support line managers on complex casework with Legal and specialists for successful conclusions.
• Foster continuous improvement by collecting feedback and measuring policy effectiveness.
• Coordinate with M&S UK's ER experts to ensure aligned policies across Ireland.

Job description

Manage Employee Relations and Industrial Relations issues within the Organisation. The Employee Relations Business Partner will have the opportunity to participate in significant HR projects and initiatives.,
All the details

• Help design, deliver and, when required, lead the ROI’s employee relations, colleague listening and business change strategies and plans
• Develop and maintain effective working relationships with Unions (by leading or supporting, as appropriate, with the communication, consultation, or negotiation between parties) to create a proactive partnership with each union which, at its heart, jointly delivers business benefit and positive colleague engagement.
• Work closely with key stakeholders, to develop and deliver toolkits, training interventions and upskilling strategies which raise line manager ER capability and confidence to ensure policies are applied correctly; colleague experience is enhanced; business change is implemented appropriately; and trade union partners are properly engaged.
• Provide expert employee relations advice and input into business change programmes. This includes partnering with ROI People Partners and M&S UK CoE’s as necessary to ensure the effective delivery and end- to-end management of operational or transformational change which can include, when required, assisting or leading trade union negotiations/consultation.
• Develop and simplify ROI people policies and processes to ensure they are legal, competitive, practical, meet future business needs, and enhance the M&S brand and colleague experience. This includes ensuring that ROI policies and processes are communicated effectively, and their delivery is supported, when required, with appropriate training.
• Partner with subject matter experts to ensure any policy related system change requirements and dependencies are fully understood, resource-effective, will be supported by robust user acceptance testing and, if necessary, launched with user training to ensure successful deployment.
• Monitor and interpret changes to ROI employment legislation and undertake external benchmarking to ensure M&S remains compliant and a best practice and innovative employer.
• Lead (from design to post implementation review) projects as required and act as the ROI’s subject matter expert by providing guidance and support to HR colleagues, line managers, and colleagues on policy, employee relations and colleague engagement and listening matters.
• Manage and provide expertise to line managers on how complex casework should be handled and progressed (working with Legal and other specialists) to the case’s successful conclusion.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement, by seeking feedback, designing and developing metrics and incorporating insights and learning to refine policies and processes and to measure their effectiveness.
• Create and maintain effective working relationships with M&S’s UK Policy and ER specialists (and other UK CoEs) to ensure ROI and UK policy and people strategies are (when appropriate) congruent and jointly promote the M&S brand whilst minimising any ER risks or issues across the company’s island of Ireland operation.
• Work effectively with the rest of the Ireland People Team, by contributing ideas and expertise and acting as a fully participative team member to assist colleagues in the delivery of all elements of the People Plan and to be a high-performance team.