People Advisor

MHP Group is the integrated communications agency built for the Networked Age – a world that’s increasingly connected, complex, polarised and activist.

We lead the way in the application of behavioural science to solve communications challenges. We create strategies and multichannel campaigns to engage every audience, from consumer to policy maker, and from stakeholder to shareholder.

With 230 experts in London, we are trusted by many of the world’s leading businesses and brands.

Our specialist teams include Brand & Reputation, Corporate Advisory & Capital Markets, Public Affairs, Strategic Media, Crisis & Risk, Change & Employee Engagement, Health, Financial Services, Technology, Mischief and Studio La Plage.

The role

The People Advisor provides employee relations and project support to the agency, partnering with the Head of People to deliver the people strategy.

The role is generalist in nature and sits within a small team of four. It is multifaceted, offering exposure across all stages of the employee lifecycle. A strong focus of the role is building effective relationships across the agency in order to influence stakeholders and support the successful rollout of key people initiatives.

The People Advisor is supported by a People Co-ordinator.

Responsibilities:

● People Advisory and Stakeholder Engagement

○ Build and maintain effective working relationships with line managers and other key stakeholders across the agency, acting as a coach and mentor

○ Collaborate and integrate within the practice groups across the agency to identify challenges, offer support and new initiatives to move forward

○ Advise, support and coach both employees and managers on employee relations and employee life cycle matters, ensuring that all issues are dealt with in good time, sensitively and appropriately

○ Support line managers, building their competence and confidence to enable them to effectively manage their teams

○ Look to continually understand the changing needs of our employees and deliver effective solutions

● Performance

○ Manage performance improvement plan (PIP) processes, providing end-to-end guidance to managers on objective setting, documentation, review meetings and outcomes, ensuring consistency, fairness and compliance with policy

○ Work in partnership with the Head of People to identify opportunities to support improved people performance in line with business needs

○ Drive an effective approach to performance development through relationships with senior stakeholders

○ Support the team through all performance review cycles and development planning processes to drive a high-performance culture

● Employee Relations

○ Lead on employee relations cases, with support from the Head of People where required, including disciplinaries, grievances and appeals, providing end-to-end advice and support to line managers throughout the process.

○ Manage all family-related leave and flexible working processes, providing advice and guidance to managers and employees throughout

○ Manage the exit interview process, including distribution of feedback and highlighting key themes and feedback to managers where necessary

● Learning and Development

○ Manage and facilitate the delivery of the MHP Group Academy learning programme, with support from Head of People

○ Work with senior stakeholders to understand practice capability needs and source and deliver appropriate internal or external training offerings

○ Be responsible for quarterly training reviews, to present back to Head of People and CEO

○ Manage the online learning platform (The Fount), ensuring content remains current, relevant, and accessible for employees

● DEI

○ Support the HR team in championing a more diverse and inclusive workplace by promoting initiatives, ways of working and behaviours that drive positive change

○ Contribute as part of the integration team to support and help lead employee wellbeing initiatives, fostering collaboration across practices

● Policy and working practices

○ Supporting the wider HR Team in the review of existing people policies and processes (including taking account of new and upcoming employment legislation), and supporting the roll out of new initiatives

○ Understand the business and how it is structured to be commercially successful

○ Have the ability and confidence to share ideas for improvement to our processes and policies with the Head of People and line managers using the business context

○ Remain up to date with HR best practice, and proactively review and communicate HR trends/employment law that may impact the business

● People Projects and Operational Support

○ Support the development and roll out of people projects across the agency to support the HR agenda

○ Support the People Coordinator and Payroll team to manage the monthly pay cycle, ensuring timely communication of changes to terms and conditions of employment (e.g. Promotions, job title changes etc.) and the processing of paperwork

○ Provide guidance and support to the People Co-ordinator on people-related projects and provide cover for core activities during periods of absence, ensuring continuity of service

Requirements

We are looking for someone with generalist HR experience within a fast paced environment. Used to working in a small team who has a proactive and can-do attitude. You will be resilient, able to work at pace and comfortable juggling a varied workload and a broad group of stakeholders.

Key competencies we’re looking for include:

• Strong generalist employee relations knowledge with practical experience of managing processes to resolution

• Strong interpersonal and relationship skills, with the ability to gain knowledge and respect to enable you to influence and challenge where appropriate

• Excellent communication skills and work effectively in a team environment

• Naturally collaborative and solution focused

• A complete finisher who enjoys working at pace and having a broad, varied workload

• A trusted pair of hands who takes responsibility for building their generalist HR knowledge and becoming a subject matter expert

• Someone who thrives in a fast paced environment with changing expectations and able to work comfortably with varying degrees of ambiguity

• A great time manager able to work proactively and manage their own workload whilst understanding when to ask for help in a timely manner

And in return, we offer:

• Excellent starting salary with annual reviews

• 25 days holiday allowance (+ bank holidays), a day off to celebrate your Birthday, ‘Time4U’ every month and office Christmas closure

• Matched pension contributions (up to 5%)

• Life Assurance 

• Private Medical Insurance

• Employee Assistance Programme

• Season ticket loans and Cycle to work scheme

• Gym & Shopping discounts

• Access to our Learning Academy to support your career and personal growth

• Hybrid (up to 2 days remote working per week)

• ‘Work from Anywhere’ one week per year

Click here to see the full list of Our benefits - MHP Group (teamtailor.com)

Here at MHP Group, we are committed to creating an inclusive and a diverse workforce.