People Partner

People Partner

College location: East Surrey College (Redhill) and John Ruskin College (Croydon)

Salary: £48,345.73 - £51,277.51 (Subject to qualifications, skills and experience)

Hours: Full time (37 hours/week)

Are you an experienced HR professional who thrives on building strong partnerships, driving change, and supporting people to perform at their best? We're looking for a People Partner to join our College Group and play a key role in shaping the employee experience across East Surrey College and John Ruskin College.

As a People Partner, you'll act as a trusted advisor to managers and staff, providing expert guidance across the full employee lifecycle. From recruitment and onboarding through to performance, professional development, and employee relations, you'll ensure our people practices are legally compliant, business-aligned, and supportive of our organisational goals.

You'll lead on staffing strategies within your designated client areas, supporting restructures, managing change, and driving proactive initiatives around wellbeing, engagement, and performance. You'll also manage members of the HR team, ensuring a high-quality, responsive service is delivered across the College Group.

Key responsibilities include:

• Leading on employee relations matters, including disciplinary, grievance, capability, and performance management.
• Line-managing HR colleagues to deliver excellent service.
• Collaborating with the wider stakeholders to deliver consistent, compliant, and effective processes.
• Acting as the strategic and operational HR lead for designated client areas.
• Supporting and leading restructures, consultations, and organisational change.

About you:

• You will hold a CIPD qualification (ideally Level 7 MCIPD). A degree, preferably in Human Resources or a related subject, is desirable.
• You will have Significant proven experience as an HR Advisor covering all aspects of HR and providing guidance and advice to all staff including those at Senior level
• Experience of successfully supervising and managing staff, to include carrying out 121s and appraisals and previous line management experience
• Confident in handling complex ER cases and advising senior leaders.
• Experience of working in an FE College or other educational establishment is desirable

You'll be a strong communicator, able to build credibility quickly and work collaboratively with colleagues at all levels. Most importantly, you'll be motivated by making a positive impact on people and culture, helping create an inclusive, high-performing workplace.

Closing date: 1st September2025

If this sounds like you and you will enjoy working in a forward thinking, friendly, fast paced, changing environment with state of the art facilities, we would love to hear from you. In return, we offer a competitive salary, as well as staff benefits such a choice of two excellent pension schemes, a brilliant holiday package, free onsite parking and access to our fully equipped gym along with discounted in house Spa and Salon treatments.

Applications will however be shortlisted on a rolling basis and we reserve the right to interview and appoint before this closing date. We therefore encourage you to apply at the earliest opportunity to avoid disappointment. As much as we would love to respond to all applicants, due to the sheer volume of applications we receive we are unable to respond to all unsuccessful candidates. If you have not heard from us within 14 days of sending your CV, unfortunately you have not been selected for the position and we would thank you for your interest.

Please refer to the attached Job Description, Person Specification and Competency Framework and apply using the button below.

Orbital South Colleges Group are committed to Equal Opportunities, encouraging applications from all sectors of the community to reflect our diverse student population. We are also committed to PREVENT and Safeguarding the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Both College Campus' are smoke-free zones.

As part of our pre-employment checks, successful candidates will be required to complete an enhanced DBS, references will be taken and evidence of all qualifications and awards will also be required before commencement of employment. Failure to do so may lead to offers being withdrawn.

Applicants must be eligible to work in the UK as we do not sponsor work permits, and work permits from other organisations are unacceptable as proof of right to work in the UK.