People Business Partner

Location: Covent Garden, London

Salary starting: Competitive salary plus a discretionary annual bonus.

Hours: 37.5 hours per week. Monday to Friday

We are seeking an experienced HR Professional to join us as a People Business Partner. This role will act as a trusted advisor to business leaders and managers, aligning people initiatives with our business goals to drive performance, engagement and culture. The successful candidate will achieve this through building strong relationships and being able to coach and influence where needed. This role is required to balance day-to-day HR delivery with strategic people initiatives, ensuring a high-performance culture and growth mindset.

Key Responsibilities as People Business Partner

• Partner with managers and leaders to align people priorities with business objectives.

• Act as the first point of contact for senior managers and leaders on HR matters, coaching and influencing to drive people and performance outcomes.

• Act as a trusted coach to managers and leaders, equipping them to build resilient, inclusive, and high-performing teams.

• Provide constructive feedback to managers and employees to support performance improvement and professional growth.

• Provide practical guidance on people challenges, succession planning and workforce design, driving capability at all levels.

• Partner with leaders to design and implement comprehensive people plans that align with business priorities and foster employee engagement and development.

• Partner with the Recruitment, Learning & Development and Communication and Engagement teams to design and implement solutions.

• Lead and support projects including year-end processes, engagement survey, change initiatives and local business driven initiatives.

• Coach leaders and people managers to proactively manage employees and provide advice and guidance on varying employee topics and issues.

• Oversee employee relations cases, balancing pragmatic solutions with compliance and risk management.

• Streamline and automate HR processes and workflows to enhance team efficiency and employee experience.

• Leverage people analytics, engagement data, and performance metrics to provide actionable insights to leaders.

• Support retention by analysing turnover trends, engaging with exit/engagement data and shaping action plans.

• Use dashboards to enable data-led decisions on talent, performance and organisational design.

Skills and Experience we're looking for

• HR Business Partnering & Stakeholder Management - ability to build strong credible relationship and provide coaching and advice to senior senior managers and leaders.

• Ability to translate data into insight, using PowerBI and engagement results via dashboards.

• Experience handling complex and sensitive employee relations matters with sound judgement and discretion.

• Strong knowledge of UK employment law and HR best practice.

• Experience working in a dynamic and commercial environment - ideally within a growth organisation.

This is a wonderful opportunity to join an ambitious, thriving and professional company, located in the heart of London. We started in 2009 and are now a 210+ strong team working every day to embody our values: Integrity, Development, Energy, Achievement and Support.

Our head office is in Covent Garden, and we operate a 24/7 business out of nine communities across the city (King’s Cross, St Pancras, Hoxton, Tower Bridge, Victoria, Vauxhall, City, Westminster and Battersea), with nearly 5,000 total beds. We opened urbanest Battersea in September 2024, one of the world’s most sustainable student accommodation buildings, and look forward to opening our 10th and largest community, urbanest Canary Wharf in 2026. With 1,672 beds, urbanest Canary Wharf will further enhance our sector leading status when it comes to sustainable developments.

Our communities each have a unique feel with buzzing social areas and quiet study spaces for our residents, and we are proud to offer an amazing living experience for students attending leading universities such as King’s College London, University College London, LSE, New York University, University of Arts, SOAS and many others. We have a co-ordinated calendar of in-house events to help students discover London and truly enjoy their time with us, ensuring urbanest has a positive impact during this developmental stage of their lives, serving us in our Mission:
“To enhance university life by delivering responsible, sustainable communities across London.”

At urbanest we are proud of our incredible work culture, and we all come together at different events throughout the year to celebrate our achievements. We are also pleased to offer numerous staff benefits, including discounted gym membership, travel to work/cycle to work loan, a generous company pension contribution, access to Wellbeing app Headspace, and more. Join us at urbanest and help us achieve our Vision of “a living and working experience better than yesterday; even better tomorrow.”

If you're ready to make an impact and be part of a dynamic, growing team, we would love to hear from you. Apply now!