Strategic People Business Partner

Do you believe the world of work can be a force for good? 

At Barnardo's, we do. We're looking for a Strategic People Business Partner who wants to help turn that belief into reality, shaping culture, capability and ways of working so our colleagues can deliver life changing outcomes for children and young people. 

This is not a traditional HR role. It's an opportunity to work at the heart of one of the UK's most impactful children's charities, partnering with senior leaders as a trusted advisor and critical friend during a period of exciting transformation. You'll influence organisational design, co-create transformational ways of working, build leadership capability and energise cultural change, ensuring everything we do is values led and inclusive by design. 

You'll join a People and Culture function that is intentionally evolving towards a team of teams, insight led partnering model, balancing strategic impact with excellent delivery. Curious, passionate and collaborative, we believe the People function has a vital role as a steward of our culture, champion of belonging and enabler of sustainable change. 

If you're motivated by purpose, energised by transformation and passionate about creating environments where people can thrive and do their best work, this role offers both challenge and opportunity. 

Help us create a Barnardo's where everyone belongs, and where our people are enabled to change lives. 

What you'll be doing 

In this role, you will: 

• This role forms part of a central People team delivering support across the organisation. While the primary focus will be to partner with our Retail directorate, the role will operate flexibly across other directorates, providing both strategic and operational support in line with organisational priorities. Due to high numbers of applicants candidates with retail experience will be considered first.
• Act as a strategic people and culture partner to senior leaders, shaping organisational culture, capability and ways of working. 

• Play a key leadership role in embedding a “team of teams” partnering model across the People Partnering team. 

• Drive organisation design and workforce transformation, ensuring structures and roles align to strategy, values and future capability needs. 

• Champion a values-led, inclusive and growth-focused culture, promoting equity, psychological safety and colleague voice. 

• Lead and facilitate discovery and delivery groups within the People Strategy, ensuring co-creation and collaboration across the Charity. 

• Coach, challenge and support leaders to build confident and accountable leadership, with a strong focus on performance, culture and wellbeing. 

• Partner with internal teams to strengthen diversity, equity and inclusion, ensuring all colleagues feel represented, supported and able to thrive. 

• Shape and continuously improve people policies, processes and experiences, supporting modern, flexible and inclusive ways of working. 

• Act as a credible influencer, managing people risks and strengthening the reputation of the People function as trusted, progressive and impact driven. 

• Lead on specialist People areas on a rotational basis, such as Employee Relations or People Policy, as required. 

How you'll work 

• This is a UK-wide role, with occasional travel across the UK and some meetings or events outside standard working hours (with notice and consideration of personal circumstances where possible). 

• The role is hybrid, offering flexibility to work from home and from our various hub locations required to deliver your role effectively. 
• Travel and expenses will be supported in line with Barnardo's hybrid and expenses policies. 

Why Barnardo's? 

You'll be joining an organisation with a strong purpose, committed to inclusion, safeguarding and continuous improvement. This is an opportunity to influence at scale, shape culture for the better, and help create an environment where our people – and the children and young people we serve – can truly thrive. 

When completing your application, please refer to the Job Description and Person Specification to demonstrate how you meet these.   

Due to a high number of applications for some posts, please note this vacancy may close before the displayed closing date. We recommend you apply as soon as possible.

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values.  We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people. 

For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay. 

Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours.  More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application. 

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, in the community, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or depending on the role any combination of these. Please read through the advert carefully to understand the remits of hybrid working that will be specific to the role.

Barnardo's require colleagues to be UK residents, based in the UK and to complete their roles from within the UK (with the exception of colleagues providing Barnardo's services in Jersey and colleagues who live in the Republic of Ireland providing services in Northern Ireland)

• Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
• Annual Leave entitlement for full-time colleagues is 26 days per annum, increasing to 27 days per annum, after 3 years Barnardo's service, 29 days per annum, after 5 years Barnardo's service and 30 days per annum, after 7 years Barnardo's service. Those working less than full time are entitled to the same level of holiday pro rata
• The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our Buy Your Leave scheme
• A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
• Service related sick pay from day 1
• Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
• Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
• Cycle2work scheme
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
• 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
• Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
• Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
• Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.  

Our basis and values