THE GUILDHALL SCHOOL TRUST
38,080 - 49,140 per year
Guildhall School of Music & Drama
Full-time
Job Description Job Title: HR Advisor Department: Human Resources Grade: C / D Location: Guildhall School of Music & Drama Responsible to: HR Business Partner Responsible for: N/A Appointed Candidates Signature: Please sign and date here upon receiving your offer of employment I confirm I have read the Job Description below: Full Name: …………………………………………………………. Signature ………………………..………. Date: ………………… Purpose of Post The post is to deliver a professional, customer focussed HR services to designated departments within the Guildhall School and to work across all departments in collaboration with the other HR Business Partners, HR Advisors, and HR Coordinator. To work with the HR Business Partners and HR Advisors to provide pragmatic, creative and business focused HR solutions and recommendations. To foster and maintain strong relationships with managers and employees at all levels, providing expert support and guidance across a broad range of HR matters, including recruitment and selection, employee relations, and the sharing of best practices. To conduct all activities taking account of the City of London’s Equal Opportunities’ policy, ensuring that all clients, contacts, students, and employees are treated fairly and with dignity and respect. Main Duties & Responsibilities Recruitment & Selection • To manage and advise managers on recruitment and selection processes (for external and internal campaigns) for both established staff and hourly paid professors. Page 1 of 9 • To work with recruiting managers to ensure appropriate, effective, and efficient use of media; drafting, editing, and proofing recruitment advertisements and providing advice on the selection process. • To create, review, and update job descriptions in line with the City of London job evaluations guidelines ensuring consistency across divisions. • To liaise with recruitment managers and candidates on potential employment legislation aspects of a role. (i.e. eligibility to work in the UK). • To lead on the new starter onboarding processes ensuring new staff are set up on HR systems, booked on relevant training and all new starter paperwork has been completed. In conjunction with the other HR Advisors and HR Coordinator ensure the HR induction for new staff is delivered and the probation process is completed for all new starters. • To ensure accurate and timely processing of DBSs working in collaboration with HR colleagues and ensure processes are in place to ensure DBS checks are updated as required. • To ensure all new starters within the School complete mandatory Safeguarding and Tackling Sexual Harassment trainings, while maintaining robust systems to record, monitor, and update compliance processes as required. Employee Relations • To provide advice to managers and staff on policies and procedures and terms and conditions. Take ownership of queries and follow these through to resolution referring more complex issues to the HR Business Partner. • To establish effective relationships with key staff. • To support HR Business Partners in dealing with change management projects, e.g. restructures, and contractual variations processes. • To work alongside other HR Advisors to lead and manage on area-specific and organisation wide HR projects including the roll-out of any new initiatives. e.g. proactively running training sessions for managers and staff. • To work directly with line managers in managing sickness absence cases, liaising with Occupational Health when needed, and advising managers on process and outcomes. Proactively manage sickness absence reporting, highlighting possible concerns to the HR Business Partner. Page 2 of 9 • To support and advise line managers in dealing with employee relations issues including grievance, disciplinary, and performance management undertaking casework as required. • To support HR Business Partners and other colleagues by arranging formal meetings. Prepare disciplinary/grievance hearings, and other documentation and take notes as appropriate. • To lead on managing maternity, paternity, flexible working, and other family- friendly policies related requests in line with the City of London policies and advise managers on the processes. Policies, Processes & Procedures • To coordinate and administer the annual appraisal process, review learning plans, and ensure that training needs have been recorded and training opportunities provided as required, jointly with HR colleagues. • To work collaboratively with the other HR Advisors and the HR Coordinator to ensure effective administration systems are in place and to continue to improve HR processes and practice. Initiate and jointly deliver improvement projects e.g. move to paperless filing. • To administer the leaver exit process including issuing conducting exit interviews and flagging potential issues or trends with the HR Business Partner. • To act as a Guildhall School’s HR systems rep, liaising with the City of London City People team (HR System) and providing advice to staff and managers on self-service (City People) including the Recruitment function. • To assist the Payroll Administration Team in delivering the monthly and weekly payrolls for the Guildhall School as required. Records & Information Management • To assist line managers with maintaining employment records using HR systems and databases, ensuring information is ready for any annual reports. Jointly with the other Advisors, to manage the production of quarterly reports and statistics, analysing employment trends, staff turnover, sickness absence, and other management information reports. • To maintain HR spreadsheets and databases e.g. new starters spreadsheet, safeguarding database etc. Page 3 of 9 • To ensure HR information is up-to-date on the staff intranet sites and lead on the upkeep of particular areas/sections as required. Learning & Development • To support the HR Business Partner in designing, implementing, and delivering HR training initiatives that enhance organizational capability and promote best practices. • To actively participate in the review, development, and delivery of the Learning and Development Programmes. Other • To actively seek to implement the City of London’s Occupational Health and Safety Policy in relation to the duties of the post, and at all times give due regard to the health and safety of both themselves and others when carrying out their duties. • To actively seek to implement the City of London’s Equal Opportunity Policy and the objective to promote equality of opportunity in relation to the duties of the post. • To undertake any other duties that may reasonably be requested appropriate to the grade. Page 4 of 9 Person Specification Job Title: HR Advisor Department: Human Resources – Guildhall School of Music & Drama Grade: C / D Trent Position number: N/A DBS Criterion: No DBS Security Vetting Criterion: No security vetting is required Politically Restricted Post Criterion: This post is not politically restricted Please find below the qualifications, experience and technical skills required to undertake this post. Each criterion will be assessed at application (A), interview (I) or test (T) as indicated below. Professional Qualifications / Relevant Education & Training • Educated to degree level or equivalent in Human Resources or Business Administration. (A,I) • CIPD qualified or part qualified with an intermediate level qualification. (A,I) • Excellent IT Skills including MS Office. (Word, Excel in particular) (A,I) Experience Required / Technical Skills • Proven experience of working in a Human Resources department at Advisory level. (A,I,T) • Proven ability, experience and confident in providing advice on HR policies and procedures, with experience of providing flexible solutions to HR issues within the legal and procedural frameworks. (A,I,T) • Experience of managing multiple recruitment campaigns (including campaigns for senior managers/heads of departments, hourly paid professors), with experience of interviewing candidates and providing advice and guidance to managers on interview questions and tests. (A,I,T) • Proven experience of working on ER case work. (A,I,T) • Solid experience of providing advice on sickness management. (A,I,T) • Strong experience of contract variation administration. (A,I,T) • Commitment to diversity, equality, and inclusion. (A,I) • Experience of working in an Higher Education or Arts environment with a clear understanding of the relevant HR issues in the sector. (A,I) • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with experience of dealing with staff at all levels including Vice Principals and Directors. (A,I) • Excellent written communication skills with proven experience of writing letters and reports to a high standard. (A,I) Page 5 of 9 • Numeracy skills with experience of producing and analysing data and statistics. (A, I, T) • Excellent planning and organisational skills including the ability to manage time, competing priorities and resources, a busy workload, and urgent tasks in a structured way. (A, I) • Experience of working in a busy office, an understanding of the importance of deadlines and the ability to work under pressure. (A, I) • Excellent attention to detail skills. (A, I, T). • Proven experience and confidence of working with HR systems (data input and analysis) and providing systems advice to management and staff. (A,I) • Excellent IT Skills including MS Office. (Word, Excel in particular) (A,I) • Self-motivated, proactive, inquisitive, and able to act on own initiative. (A, I) • Ability to think independently and able to come up with solutions in line HR policies and procedures and best practices. (A, I) Recruitment – Note to Applicants The qualifications, experience and technical skills will be used in the decision-making process for recruitment. Please give examples of how you have exhibited these behaviours in your previous role(s) and experience. It is essential you address the criterion marked as (A) on your application form in the section for supporting information, this will be the minimum criteria for shortlisting. Be as specific as possible, we cannot guess or make assumptions, but will assess your application solely on the information provided. Try to provide evidence, by examples, where possible, of skills, knowledge and experience contained in this person specification. Page 6 of 9 Summary of Terms and Conditions of Employment This summary is given as a guide and is not intended to form part of an individual’s contract of employment. Contract The position is offered on a permanent basis. Salary The salary range for this job is £38,080 - £49,140 (Grade C and Grade D) per annum inclusive of all allowances. This figure will be reviewed annually from 1 July in line with the pay award for other salaried staff within the City of London Corporation. Pension The pension scheme provided by the City of London is the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). The LGPS is a public sector, statutory, funded, defined benefit pension scheme. Benefits are accrued based upon scheme member’s salary and the length of time for which they are a member of the scheme. You will automatically be admitted to the City of London Corporation’s Pension Scheme. Member contributions are based upon the rate of pensionable pay received by the scheme member. Members contribute between 5.5% and 12.5% of their pensionable pay to the scheme, depending on salary. Please see here for the contribution bands. There is also an option to join the 50/50 section of the scheme where members pay half the contribution rate and accrue benefits at half the accrual rate. The current employer contribution rate for the City of London is 21%. Further details can be found on the national LGPS website and/or the City’s pension website. If you do not wish to join the Scheme you must make a formal declaration stating you wish to opt out. You may contact the Pensions Office directly should you have any queries relating to the Local Government Pension scheme and your entitlements under this scheme. Hours of Work Normal hours of work are between 9am – 5pm, 35 hours per week excluding lunch breaks, Monday to Friday, inclusive but the post holder shall be expected to work the hours necessary to carry out the duties of the position. Frequency and Method of Payment Page 7 of 9 This is a monthly paid appointment and salaries are credited to a Bank or Building Society Account on the 11th of each month. Annual Leave There is an entitlement of 24 days annual holiday plus Bank Holidays. There are subsequent increases to entitlement to annual holiday according to length of service. Continuous Service If you join the City of London Corporation without a break in service (subject to certain exceptions) from another body covered by the Redundancy Payments (Local Government) (Modification) Order 1999, your service with that institution will count for the purpose of continuous service. The amount of continuous service which you have will affect your entitlement to certain contractual benefits; for example, annual leave, sick leave and maternity leave. A full explanation of Continuous Service is contained within the Employee Handbook. Probationary Period You will be employed initially on a six-month probationary period. Should either party wish to terminate the employment during this period, then one week’s notice will be required on either side, except for summary termination for gross misconduct. Notice Period One month by either party after satisfactory completion of probationary period. Learning and Employee Development The City of London provides for financial support and time off for staff to study for appropriate qualifications which relate to their duties or undertaking professional skills update training. There is also an in-house programme covering more general training needs. City Benefits As an employee of the City Corporation, you have access to exclusive discounts and privileges through a combination of internal offers from our departments and an external service we have subscribed to from Reward Gateway. Employee Volunteering Programme The City Corporation, in line with its aims to contribute to a flourishing society, shape outstanding environments and support a thriving economy, offers employees paid special leave time during normal hours to encourage employees to volunteer their time and skills to Volunteer Involving Organisations (VIOs) operating within the Square Mile, London and beyond. Full-time employees may take up to 2 days or 14 hours per year in which to volunteer, between 1 January and 31 December. For temporary and part time employees these hours are adjusted pro rata. Volunteering time can be taken in smaller bite size e.g. 2 hours a week over 7 weeks, Page 8 of 9 where this can be accommodated by the City Corporation and meets the requirements of the volunteer organisation Sickness Absence and Pay The City of London Corporation has a comprehensive Occupational Sick Pay scheme, details of which can be found in the Employee Handbook which will be made available to you upon commencement. Page 9 of 9