People & Culture Business Partner

Key Responsibilities

• Develop a strong understanding of the business strategy, commercial model, performance drivers and future priorities of supported Hub(s).
• Partner with senior leaders to consider business opportunities, challenges and decisions through a people and organisational lens.
• Translate business strategy and Group People & Culture strategy into practical Hub-level people plans that strengthen performance and support sustainable growth.
• Act as a trusted adviser and constructive challenger to senior leadership teams, using commercial understanding, people expertise and organisational insight to influence decisions.
• Anticipate the people implications of business decisions and ensure workforce, capability, culture and organisational considerations are incorporated early in strategic planning.

• Lead strategic workforce planning, ensuring the organisation has the capacity, capability and talent required to deliver current and future business priorities.
• Partner with leaders on organisational design and operating model development, ensuring structures, roles and accountabilities support business performance.
• Lead succession and talent discussions, identifying critical roles, capability gaps and future leadership requirements.
• Work with Talent Acquisition and relevant Centres of Expertise to develop appropriate workforce and talent solutions.
• Embed a strong learning culture, ensuring leaders and colleagues are encouraged and enabled to continually build the confidence, competence and capability required for future success.

• Coach and develop senior leaders, strengthening leadership capability, accountability and organisational effectiveness.
• Champion Sumer's culture, values and "One Sumer" mentality, helping leaders translate these into everyday leadership behaviours and business decisions.
• Use engagement insight and organisational feedback to identify opportunities to strengthen culture, colleague experience and performance.
• Encourage collaboration across Hub and Group boundaries, challenging siloed thinking and promoting decisions that support the wider organisation.

• Sponsor and lead the people elements of complex organisational change, transformation, acquisition and integration activity.
• Partner with leaders to build compelling people and change plans that support effective communication, engagement and adoption.
• Anticipate organisational impacts and ensure workforce, leadership, capability and cultural implications are considered throughout change programmes.
• Support leaders to maintain engagement, performance and organisational effectiveness through periods of change.

• Provide strategic guidance and oversight on complex, high-risk or business-critical employee relations and organisational matters.
• Ensure significant people decisions balance commercial requirements, colleague impact, employment legislation, Group policy, values and organisational risk.
• Identify emerging people and organisational risks and ensure appropriate mitigation is incorporated into business planning.
• Work with People Partners to ensure operational employee relations insight informs broader strategic priorities and interventions.

• Use workforce data, commercial information and organisational insight to identify trends, risks and opportunities.
• Translate people data into meaningful business insight that informs workforce, organisational and leadership decisions.
• Monitor key people indicators including workforce capacity, capability, retention, absence, engagement, talent and employee relations trends.
• Evaluate the impact of People & Culture interventions and use insight to continually improve outcomes.

• Work closely with People Partners and People Support to ensure strategic and operational People & Culture activity is connected and mutually reinforcing.
• Partner with Centres of Expertise across Talent, Learning & Development, Reward, Engagement, DEI and Wellbeing to shape and implement Group-wide priorities.
• Contribute actively to the wider People & Culture community, sharing insight and helping develop Group-wide strategy, policy and practice.
• Build strong relationships across Sumer, promoting collaboration, consistency and shared accountability for the colleague experience.

Skills, Knowledge & Expertise

• Experience operating as a strategic HR or People Business Partner within a complex, multi-site, professional services or fast-paced organisation.
• Strong commercial acumen, with the ability to understand business strategy, commercial drivers and performance and translate these into people and organisational priorities.
• Broad and deep People & Culture expertise across organisational development, workforce planning, talent, succession, leadership, performance, employee relations, reward, engagement and organisational change.
• Demonstrable experience partnering with and influencing senior leaders, including providing constructive challenge and shaping strategic decisions.
• Strong organisational development and change capability, with experience supporting transformation, integration or significant organisational change.
• Experience building leadership and organisational capability and creating a culture of continuous learning and development.
• Strong analytical capability, with the ability to combine people and business data to generate insight and influence decisions.
• Excellent coaching, influencing and stakeholder management skills.
• Strong judgement and the ability to balance commercial objectives, colleague experience, culture and organisational risk.
• Able to move confidently between strategic thinking and practical delivery while maintaining a Group-wide perspective.
• CIPD qualification or equivalent professional experience desirable.

• Business strategy is translated into clear, commercially relevant people and organisational priorities.
• Senior leaders view People & Culture as a credible strategic partner and actively seek its insight when shaping business decisions.
• Workforce plans provide the capability, capacity and talent required to deliver sustainable business growth.
• Leadership capability strengthens and leaders demonstrate greater confidence, competence and accountability for people outcomes.
• A strong learning culture supports continuous development and future organisational capability.
• Talent and succession pipelines strengthen, with critical capability and leadership risks actively managed.
• Organisational change is delivered effectively with strong leadership ownership, colleague engagement and adoption.
• People risks are anticipated and managed proactively rather than reactively.
• People data and commercial insight are routinely used to improve business and colleague outcomes.
• Sumer's values and "One Sumer" culture are visible in leadership behaviours, people decisions and ways of working.
• People Support, People Partners, Business Partners and Centres of Expertise operate as one integrated People & Culture function.

Belong @ Sumer

• We Shine Together
• We Do the Right Thing
• We Make It Count