Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust provides child and adult mental health services, learning disability, wellbeing, older people's and eating disorder services across Norfolk and Suffolk.
At any one time, around 23,000 people in Norfolk and Suffolk are receiving care and attention from the Trust. We believe in whole life care - seeing people in the context of their whole lives, understanding the importance of good physical health, friends, family, spirituality, culture, home, work, education and a sense of purpose and achievement to experience good mental health.
Nearly 3,800 full and part-time practitioners care for our service users in hospitals, in the community and in their own homes, whilst an additional 1,400+ staff provide non-clinical support, including cleaning, catering, delivering supplies, ward administration, information technology, human resources and financial services.
We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and want to reflect the diversity of our local communities within our teams. We welcome applications from all talented individuals with the relevant qualifications, skills, knowledge and experience.
We are committed to delivering quality driven mental health services. Every individual makes a valuable contribution. We are proud of our staff who have been commended for the care they provide. Do you value working positively, respectfully and together? If so, we’d love you to join us!
We will consider flexible working arrangements for our roles; please indicate in your application if this is something you require.
Job overview
To provide a specialist employee relations and resolution service to managers and staff across the Trust. This role is critical in leading and coaching managers in order to embed a more compassionate approach and organisational culture in the way we care for staff who experience difficulties at work. The role will require working autonomously managing a complex caseload and supporting and coaching managers and management teams to improve the standard of ER practice, ensuring that best practice is developed and any associated risks are managed appropriately. The post holder will be responsible for complex employee relations case work including but not limited to the advice on and support on the investigation of cases involving medical and senior staff.
The post holder will be a subject expert in employee relations and will be required to develop training programmes for both managers and HR staff to develop competence and capability of managers. They will also develop long-term, value-added Employee Relations processes and practices designed to enable cases to be managed through to effective conclusion in line with NHS Just Culture, best practice and legal guidelines.
Main duties of the job
1. Work as an Employee Relations Consultant to support and develop an effective specialist advisory service across the range of employee relations matters, ensuring the provision of professional expert and technical guidance and support. Focus is mainly on disciplinary and grievance cases plus those absence and performance cases that require formal final stages.
2. Providing a people focused ER Service that is in accordance with Trust values and strategic objectives of the Trust to drive a more compassionate approach and organisational culture, and embed our values of ‘TALK’ (We are a Team, We are Accountable, We Learn and Improve and We are Kind) into how we approach difficult people issues, whether in respect of their conduct, performance, interpersonal relationships (including bullying and harassment) or other concerns.
Working for our organisation
Here at NSFT we pride ourselves on being a welcoming, talented, friendly and supportive team who like nothing better than sharing experiences and learning from each other. In addition to ongoing training and development opportunities, we are committed to providing an environment in which you can thrive.
Why work for us? We have challenges as a Trust, but we have ambitious aspirations, are pushing ahead with exciting transformation work and we need dedicated individuals to support us on our journey. We have strong, established professional networks coupled with an exceptional leadership team who will ensure you are truly cared for and cared about.
Why Norfolk and Suffolk?The people here are warm and welcoming, you’ll never be far from the beautiful coastline or Broads National Park. We’re an hour and a half away from London and have an international airport in Norwich too. Our villages, towns and cities are packed full of history, independent cafes, shops and theatres. We have excellent shopping, eating out, top ranking schooling and affordable house prices too.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
1. Advise on medical employee relation issues, ensuring that cases are managed in accordance with Maintaining High Professional Standards (MHPS) and Trust Policies.
2. Support and advise wider team members with ER advice relating to sickness and performance cases and initial stages of ER casework designed to encourage reflective practice and develop confidence in decision-making.
3. Act as HR representative on Trust hearing and appeal panels ensuring consistency and appropriateness of recommendations.
4. To guide and support managers in the use of a wide range of ER interventions designed to resolve people-management issues early including process documents, best-practice advice, training, facilitated meetings, mediation and coaching.
5. To promote a partnership approach with managers and trade unions in decision-making and problem solving.
6. To promote a culture of staff engagement and staff empowerment by confidently influencing and supporting positive decision making in relationship to ER casework.
7. Report on activity and performance data for the ER service and take action to improve the service and remedy any deficiencies as appropriate, including introducing new policy and practice, escalating cases, case learning reviews, identifying issues from casework and embed learning for the managers and wider service.
8. To support and coach managers to ensure we embed people centred policies, toolkits and practices that support a fair, proportionate and compassionate approach to people management. This will include how we deal with conduct, performance and sickness absence concerns as well as situations involving interpersonal relationships.
9. To undertake routine HR policy reviews to ensure these are people centred, fit for purpose, compliant with legislative changes, aligned to NHS and Trust values and reduce bureaucracy wherever possible.
Please find attached our Job Description and Person Specification for more detail on your Key Accountabilities, then if you feel you have what it takes to make a difference in your local communities, click APPLY!
Interview dates are yet to be set; you will be contacted via email and invited to book a time. These emails may go to your SPAM, so please keep checking all your emails if applying.
Please visit our Facebook and Twitter page @NSFTjobs
Person specification
Qualifications
* Degree plus CIPD qualification level 7 or masters-level qualification or significant commensurate experience in an Employee Relations role
Experience
* Significant demonstrable experience of advising managers on a wide range of HR operational issues that are complex e.g. grievance, disciplinary, absence management, etc.
* Evidence of having a positive impact on an organisation, achieved through excellent influencing skills
* Experience working with MHPS
* Experience in the design, delivery and evaluation of training programmes
Skills
* Strong analytical skills, able to analyse information effectively identifying the causes of problems and proposing realistic and practical solutions to address them based on knowledge and understanding of an organisation and its operating environment
* Ability to use own initiative and judgement in dealing with complex problems or queries and providing advice.
* Displays a passion for excellence and the role HR can play in improving patient services and managing organisational change.
* Demonstrable proactive approach to work
* Displays effective and adaptable interpersonal and influencing strategies including the ability to persuade others with personal conviction and facts
Experience
* Experience of managing cases through Maintaining High Professional Standards Policy
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES Apart from its legal duties in relation to equality and diversity, the Trust recognises and actively promotes the benefits of a diverse workforce and is committed to treating all employees with dignity and respect regardless of race, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief.
As a part of the Disability Confident Employer Guaranteed Interview Scheme we interview all disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the job vacancy (outlined in the Person Specification). We encourage you to indicate your eligibility through TRAC jobs when applying.
DISCLOSURE AND BARRING SERVICE CHECK (formerly CRB)
FOR POSTS WITH DIRECT SERVICE USER CONTACT - Please be advised that due to recent changes in the DBS Service, organisations no longer receive copies of DBS Disclosures – these are sent directly to candidates only. Therefore, it will be your responsibility, if successful, to ensure that this is taken to the appointing officer as soon as you receive it.
Alternatively, if you have subscribed to the update service, we will be able to check your status once we have your authority to do so.
The Trust has now introduced a DBS Update Service which is a contractual requirement. You need to subscribe when you have applied for your DBS clearance and there is a time limit to subscribe of 19 days after receipt of your DBS disclosure. Please ensure that this is completed within the set time scale.
This update service is an annual subscription at a cost of £13 to you. This will enable the Trust to have instant online access to your DBS record, with your consent, and so will remove the need for you to have to apply for this repeat check again.
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