People Operations Partner

This is a 12 month Fixed Term Maternity Cover

Location: Covent Garden, London

Salary starting: Competitive salary plus a discretionary annual bonus.

Working hours: 37.5 hours per week. Monday to Friday

We are seeking an experienced HR Professional to join us as a People Operations Partner on a fixed term contract. The successful candidate will work closely with the management teams across our buildings and head office, nurturing strong relationships, providing expert advice and acting as a key enabler of operational excellence across our people processes.

Acting as a trusted partner to leaders and team members, you will support the full employee lifecycle while actively streamlining processes, improving ways of working and ensuring our policies, systems and practices are efficient, scalable and aligned to sustainable business growth. You will challenge the status quo, identify opportunities to simplify processes and help to embed consistent and effective operational practices that enhance both performance and the employee experience.

As a proactive and commercially minded partner, you will provide pragmatic, timely guidance and coaching support to managers, particularly in relation to robust employee relations case management. You will be confident in influencing stakeholders at all levels.

In addition, you will have a strong attention to detail and experience in processing payroll, working in collaboration with our outsourced payroll provider and our internal Finance team to ensure accurate, timely and compliant delivery.

Key Responsibilities as People Operations Partner

• Manage end to end employee case management, demonstrating a thorough understanding of all formal employee relations processes, including disciplinary, performance management, grievance, flexible working and absence management.

• Coach leaders and people managers to proactively manage employees, balancing pragmatic solutions with compliance and risk management

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

• Deliver Employee Relations training sessions to managers to share knowledge, refreshing the content where needed to ensure it remains engaging and complies with employment law updates.

• Prepare the monthly payroll calendar, ensuring the availability of all involved in the authorisation process.

• Work collaboratively with the People Operations team to prepare the monthly payroll, including creating payroll instructions, using reports to ensure accurate deductions and additions, reviewing payroll data, and providing commentary to the Finance team where required.

• Build strong relationships with managers and leaders to understand team priorities and provide people insights that support decision making.

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

• Maintain accurate people data across HR systems, ensuring compliance with data protection regulations.

• Leverage people analytics, engagement data, and performance metrics to provide actionable insights to leaders (with a specific focus on our regular engagement survey feedback).

• Support retention by analysing turnover trends, engaging with exit/engagement data and following up with managers and leaders during conversations.

Skills and Experience we're looking for

• Comprehensive experience of dealing with simultaneous employee relations cases.

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

• Experience using a HRIS system and its reporting system to analyse data.

• CIPD qualification or equivalent is desirable

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!