HR Advisor

Job summary

What you’ll do

Being key members of the management teams they support, as HR Advisor you will act as the first point of contact to our managers, providing advice and guidance to the business to improve people management capability and manage casework. We provide HR support to teams across the whole of England, so travel will be involved including occasional overnight stays. We aim to provide a great place to work and blended working forms part of our flexible and inclusive approach to future ways of working. It is an informal arrangement which gives you the option to work some of the week from home, and some of the week from our Forestry Commission workplaces, subject to role requirements, business needs, and regular review. Informal blended working arrangements will be available as agreed with the line manager.

Please see the job description below for more information and details about what we need from you.

Where you’ll work

You can be based in our national Bristol office, or from locations across Central England, the South, or the East. We aim to provide a great place to work, whichever location you work from.

Job description

You will be responsible for delivering general advice and guidance to managers on all HR operational matters. It is essential that the successful applicant has strong HR generalist skills, proven experience in managing HR and employee relations and can provide sound advice on policy matters associated with the full HR lifecycle. You will work collaboratively with your peers and HRBPs to provide outstanding support to the organisation.

Relationship Management

• Establish, maintain and nurture relationships with the wider HR team and operational teams across the business to ensure delivery of all HR services and operational matters

HR Management

• Demonstrate a ‘hands-on’ approach to HR management and will contribute to the successful delivery of the full HR lifecycle through taking personal responsibility for their areas of work.
• Support or leading employee relations cases and documentation to support the case management of disciplinary or grievance issues raised by staff

Recruitment

• Manage vacancies for roles across parts of the organisation.
• Preparing documents for approval, sending applications, sifting and interview documents to hiring managers, supporting pre-employment and onboarding checks, and any queries relating to recruitment.

And any other tasks, reasonably requested by your line manager

Person specification

Essential professional and technical experience

• Effective administrative skills and excellent attention to detail
• Excellent spoken and written communication skills
• Competent IT user with experience in MS Office suite of applications
• Experience of working in a HR or recruitment team
• Employee relations expertise including planning, managing and risk mitigation of employment cases
• HR Systems and process knowledge, together with an understanding of current employment law
• Knowledge of the application of employment policies and practices, including compliance requirements for HR
• Effective influencing and communication skills
• HR service management expertise including familiarity with the structures, processes and tasks undertaken across and operational HR service
• Ability to quickly build and maintain key relationships with a diverse and complex range of stakeholders

Desirable professional and technical experience

• Working knowledge of the Vx System or Applicant Tracking Systems
• Experience of job evaluation, ideally JEGs trained
• Experience in producing MI and interpreting this for stakeholders

Qualifications

Essential

• A GCSE in Maths and English or functional skills equivalent

Desirable

• CIPD Level 3 in Human Resource Management or equivalent experience

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace
• Making Effective Decisions
• Managing a Quality Service

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• You may be asked to complete an assessment exercise.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £33,854, Forestry Commission contributes £9,807 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Benefits

Alongside your salary, Forestry England contributes an average of 28.97% towards your pension. You will become a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension Scheme.

• 25 days holiday a year, raising by one day every year’s service, up to 30 days (pro-rated for part time employees) plus additional days off such as bank holidays.
• STaR is our employee benefits scheme offering discounts on everyday supermarket shopping, as well as other things such as hotel stays clothes, mobile phones, other electrical items, medical and car insurance, holidays, gym discounts, household bills, Headspace wellbeing app.
• free parking at Forestry England sites and free entry to our National Arboretums at Westonbirt and Bedgebury.
• a commitment to lifelong learning through career development. Forestry England will support your career development in a variety of ways, including continual professional development, support for individual learning plans and sponsored membership of professional bodies.

Read more about the benefits on the Forestry England website.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths, Experience and Technical skills.

How to apply

You will be asked to write a 200 word statement on your relevant experience and career history, along with a personal statement of no more than 500 words. You will be assessed on both during sifting. More details about how to apply are listed on the application form.

You will be assessed on experience, behaviours and strength based questions during your interview. You may be asked to complete an assessment exercise as part of this.

The Behaviours being assessed at interview are –

• Communicating and Influencing

• Delivering at Pace

• Making Effective Decisions

• Managing a Quality Service

Successful candidates will undergo a criminal record check and the government baseline personnel security standard check.

If you require any reasonable adjustments, please email fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk.

If you're planning to use AI to support your application, please ensure you've read our guidelines here first.

Read more about our application process and working with us on the Forestry England website.

This role is funded by DEFRA rather than through Forestry England generated revenue, and is therefore subject to government spending reviews. While DEFRA has indicated long term support for the Biodiversity Programme and we expect funding to continue, it is possible that funding levels may change at the end of any financial year depending on DEFRA’s budget allocations. In the event of funding changes, we would prioritise retaining staff posts wherever possible. This approach is consistent for roles within publicly funded organisations. We are committed to keeping staff informed and supported through any changes.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : FC Recruitment Team
• Email : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk

Further information

Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of appointment on the basis of fair and open competition and appointment on merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles.If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact FCE by email: englandhr.services@forestryengland.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Civil Service Commission, which regulates all Civil Service recruitment.

Attachments

Forestry England Job Description - HR Advisor (PB5) (1) Opens in new window (pdf, 81kB)