Senior People Manager
Role Title: Senior People Manager
Salary: £38,564 - £40,595 per annum
Hours of Work: 35 hours per week
Type of Contract: Permanent
Closing Date: 30 January 2026
WMC is a home for the arts in Wales, and a cauldron of creativity for the nation. We fire imaginations by curating world-class, critically acclaimed touring productions, from musical theatre and comedy to dance, cabaret and an international festival. We kindle emerging talents with fresh, provocative, and popular pieces of our own, rooted in Welsh culture. And we ignite a passion for the arts in young people with life-changing learning experiences and chances to shine in the spotlight.
About WMC/Our Department:
The People team delivers all aspects of People and development support services such as recruitment, engagement initiatives, all aspects of employee relations and performance management, employment law compliance; development and implementation of effective policies and procedures, payroll, benefits, providing professional people and staff development advice.
It is an exciting time to join the team as we embark on implementing a new recruitment and onboarding system, adapt to the changes of the upcoming employment legislation, improve our pay and benefits processes and continue to develop our vibrant and engaging work environment.
About the Role and Responsibilities:
• Reporting into the Head of Corporate Services, you will lead People function to deliver strategic and operational HR services that enable organisational performance, culture, and compliance. Providing effective, timely and proactive People support and services to both line managers and employees, ensuring that oversight and compliance over all key people processes.
• You will act as strategic partner to the Executive/Senior Leadership Team (SLT) on recruitment, organisation design, and culture, provide insights and recommendations grounded in data.
• Leading, coaching, and developing the People team, embedding continuous improvement and service excellence across all activities
• You will advise and lead people dimensions of change programmes, minimising disruption and building engagement.
• You will own and continuously develop People-related systems and processes that provide a demonstrable benefit to our people and the efficient and cost-effective operation of the organization, encourage all managers to maximise the benefits of the automated processes, reporting and systems available through People/Payroll, Recruitment and e-learning platform.
• Working with the Senior Leadership Team, you will develop management & leadership development programmes, to improve capability and improve the performance of the organization.
• You will lead on all pay and benefit reviews, developing relevant reward and recognition practices to achieve the organisation’s goals.
• You will work on a hybrid-basis after an initial training period.
Your role will be subject to a DBS check.
Key Requirements:
• You will possess demonstrable experience of leading on all areas of HR (recruitment, employee relations, pay and reward, learning and development, performance management), with ability to demonstrate proactive HR management
• You will have demonstrable experience of effectively leading and managing others
• A Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel (CIPD)
• A track record of keeping up to date with employment legislation, relevant regulations, best practice and interpreting for a specific organisation
• Proven experience of working with technology to deliver people services, recruitment, people/payroll or e-learning system, as well as being competent in the use of Microsoft 365 programmes
• Strong planning and organisation skills to deliver the People agenda
• Ability to build relationships and influence senior leaders on key people initiatives
• Takes accountability for delivery and continuously improving the employee offer.
What’s in it for you?
• 25 days of annual leave plus bank holiday, based on a 35-hour week, pro rata for part time.
• Enhanced pension scheme.
• Enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption, and shared parental leave (subject to length of service)
• Health cash plan: receive money towards dental and optical care, complimentary treatments such as chiropractic, osteopathic and acupuncture treatments.
• Medical Assistance membership which includes remote access to GP, counselling, and physiotherapy sessions
• Employee assistance programmes which include access to support services for legal, financial, and family concerns
• Life assurance of 4x annual salary.
• Opportunity to apply for tickets to productions
• CLWB – Our employee social group
• NEWID – our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion networking group who meet monthly to discuss new ideas and training opportunities to improve all aspects of employment at WMC.
• Free access to learn Welsh online
• £5 all-day parking available on working and non-working days.
• 35-hour working week including a flexitime policy to assist with varying start and finish times around personal commitments (and operational needs)