HR Officer (Maternity Cover)

Job summary

The HR Officer (Maternity Cover) provides high-quality, professional HR support across the full employee lifecycle, ensuring that HR processes are delivered accurately, efficiently and in compliance with GAD policies, statutory requirements and internal standards. The post holder acts as the first point of contact for operational HR queries, providing timely advice to managers and colleagues on recruitment, onboarding, employee relations, wellbeing, HR administration, and systems.

Working collaboratively with HR Business Partners and the wider HR team, the role supports organisational effectiveness by coordinating recruitment activity, administering contractual changes, managing onboarding processes, and maintaining accurate HR records and reporting. The HR Officer also contributes to employee well-being and engagement through effective case management, appropriate signposting, and proactive communication.

The role plays a key part in promoting a positive employee experience by ensuring a well‑managed HR processes, delivering reliable operational support, maintaining data integrity, and escalating complex issues where appropriate. The HR Officer further enhances the employee experience through timely communication, well-managed processes, and proactive collaboration across HR and with stakeholders across GAD.

We offer great working benefits including a world-class pension, flexible working options and a career where your learning and development is taken seriously.

Job description

Providing 1st level proactive operational professional advice to colleagues & managers for the whole of the employee life cycle, predominantly in an administration context, but with the expectation of an advisory context as well.

The first point of call for basic employee relations and wellbeing queries, escalating where necessary. Ensuring that HR administrative tasks are carried out on time, to a high standard.

The post holder will use a full mixture of skills built on from enthusiasm, a questioning approach and hands-on experience, to support predominantly the HR Business Partners, but also other members of the HR team, in relation to employee relations cases, wellbeing initiatives, recruitment & onboarding approaches delivering efficient day to day HR advice & administration, supporting the other HR Officers.

Person specification

Recruitment

• Be a point of contact for information on civil service recruitment principles and advise hiring managers on timeline and procedure.
• Advise and action contractual changes for staff who are new joiners or leavers.
• Organising interviews, preparing recruitment forms, interview schedules, interview packs, etc.
• Undertake relevant pre-employment checks, including right to work checks, vetting and references.
• Arrange for roles to be advertised internally on job boards and with recruitment agencies.
• Assist and participate in the interview process as requested.
• Assist in managing the secondment process and be the first point of contact for advice.
• Oversee the monthly secondments oversight meeting with the finance team
• Ensure the business secondment log is updated regularly.

Onboarding

• Oversee the paperwork for new starters, working closely with the Payroll and Systems Manager to ensure inputs are done in a timely fashion.
• Ensure new starters have everything that they need and follow up with individuals to make sure they are fully supported.
• Facilitate HR inductions for new starters.
• Streamline the onboarding process to ensure better and well-managed processes.

Employee Relations

• Advise and action contractual changes for staff in the following circumstances: flexible working, adhoc contract changes, maternity, paternity, shared parental leave.
• Takes accurate notes at a variety of meetings & distribute to relevant parties in a timely manner.
• Manage the probation process, advising managers on key dates, ensuring probation reviews are held.
• Support managers with probation-related queries, with support and guidance as necessary
• Issue probation extension, pass, termination letters as appropriate and update the HR system.
• Oversee the leavers process of ensuring building passes & equipment is returned on the last day.
• Advise employees on all GAD policies and procedures
• Be first point of contact for policy advise.

Wellbeing

• Oversee the administration of occupational health appointments.
• Monitoring of sickness, both in terms of inputting sickness onto the system and keeping track of sickness, to ensure the relevant sickness meetings are held.
• Invite staff to sickness meetings and attend sickness meetings as appropriate.
• Supporting staff at times of distress, whether it be through sickness meetings or opportunistic visit to HR and referring to Occupational Health or pointing them towards our Employee Assistance programme.
• Overseeing the Eye Test and Bupa vouchers process.

HR database, records and reporting

• Managing the HR team shared email inbox, escalating more complex queries, & employee relations issues to the appropriate HR Business Partner.
• Amend records on the HR database and running reports from the system exporting into Excel as required.
• Working with Finance to ensure that the establishment list is updated regularly and is completely accurate.
• Filing promptly (electronic and on SharePoint) in order that HR records are up to date.
• Assist with the archiving and destruction of documents in accordance with the document retention schedule and Data Protection requirements.

System Management:

• Apply monthly payroll changes.
• Be a point of contact for monthly payroll queries.
• Be comfortable with systems to provide cover for other members of the team when needed.
• Utilising HR systems to run structure reports, provide case management updates, maintain staff records online particularly sickness records.
• To be the one of the main point of contact for making referrals to occupational health, so detailed knowledge of the Occupational Health Providers.

Administration

• Raise Purchase Orders as required, particularly around Desk Station Assessments.
• Assist the team with the organisation and co-ordination of meetings/interviews, booking rooms and listing visitors as required.
• Drafting letters for members of the team, mainly using standard templates, and send out in line with the information classification and handling policy.
• Responding to emails / face to face enquiries, re-allocating within the team where appropriate, in order to ensure timely responses to all queries in line with HR SLAs where these exist.
• Complete all filing in a timely manner. Ensure that all HR records are accurate, complete and up to date and adhere to all record keeping and audit requirements.
• Undertake any other reasonable duties as requested from time to time by the HR Business Partner.
• Assigning lockers to all GAD staff, facilitate IT inductions, and order of IT equipment for new joiners.

Personal Responsibility:

• To be an ambassador & role model the values & behaviours we expect to all colleagues.
• To work in partnership with the whole of the HR team to deliver joined up working in delivery of a comprehensive HR service.
• An interest in developing and growing the role to develop the organisation and to develop your own skills.

Behaviours

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

• Changing and Improving
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Managing a Quality Service

Technical skills

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

• CIPD Level 3 or equivalent qualification. Or provide evidence of appropriate level of knowledge, skills & abilities. (Essential)
• Good IT skills including MS Office and excellent Excel skills. (Essential)

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £34,541, Government Actuary's Department contributes £10,006 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

As well as competitive salaries, we offer a substantial package of benefits:

• Exceptional learning and development opportunities that you can explore alongside your day-to-day work.
• 25 days annual leave per year, increasing to 30 days after 5 years’ service. In addition, we offer 9 days public and privilege days leave per year (pro rata for part time staff)
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
• 5 days of paid volunteering leave
• Up to 9 months maternity leave on full pay + generous paternity and adoption leave
• Staff reward and recognition bonuses that operate throughout the year.
• Occupational sick pay
• Family-friendly policies such as help with caring responsibilities, special leave, generous paid maternity, paternity, and adoption leave.
• Access to employee assistance programme which offers staff 24/7 confidential support and resources such as counselling, debt guidance and management advice.
• The opportunity to join a trade union.
• A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity.
• Salary advances for travel costs, including annual season tickets and cycle-to-work schemes.
• Access to the Edenred employee benefits system which offers discounts to popular retailers and access to various useful resources such as financial and savings advice.
• Complimentary BUPA health check for permanent staff.

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 and Technical skills.

Stage 1: Application sift

As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete:

• A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you provide employment history that relates to the essential criteria, and that any gaps in employment history within the last 2 years are explained.
• A Personal statement of up to 500-words explaining how you meet the essential criteria for the role, with particular reference to the criteria provided in the person specification of the JD.

The Civil Service application process has a standardised method for assessing candidates, we strongly recommend that you read the descriptions of the civil service behaviours. Strong applications will present these in the Situation, Task, Action, Result (STAR) method.

We will use your CV and Personal Statement to assess the Experience and Technical skills listed in the JD.

Stage 2: Panel interview

During the interview you will be assessed on the experience and behaviours listed in the Person Specification and detailed in this advert.

Timelines

Application deadline: 1200 hrs on 25 February 2026
Shortlisting: w/c 02 March 2026
Interviews: w/c 16 March 2026

Interview locations: London

Please apply via our recruitment portal below.

As part of the application form process, please submit your CV and supporting statement. Please do not email your CV outside of this process as it will not be accepted.

Shortlisting criteria is based on the Person Specification as set out in the Assessment Criteria section of the Job Description. Please ensure you provide examples of how you meet the Assessment Criteria; a strong application will also demonstrate that you meet the required criteria that are identified as key for this role. Applications will be shortlisted in line with the essential criteria for the role. The desirable criteria will not be assessed throughout the recruitment process, but will be used in the event of tied scores between candidates. Behaviours will be assessed at sift and interview stage. Candidates who are successful at shortlist will be contacted as soon as possible and advised of the interview process and assessment (exact times and dates will also be confirmed).

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months from which further appointments can be made.

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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

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.

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

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 : Recruitment Team
• Email : recruitment@gad.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : recruitment@gad.gov.uk

Further information

The Government Actuary’s Department’s recruitment processes are underpinned by the recruitment principles of the Civil Service Commissioner, which outline that selection for appointment be made on merit on the basis of fair and open competition http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitm… If you feel at any time your application has not been treated in accordance with the values in the Civil Service Code and/or if you feel the recruitment has been conducted in such a way that conflicts with the Civil Service Commissioner’s Recruitment Principles, you may make a complaint, by contacting recruitment@gad.gov.uk in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commissioners.

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-actuarys-department

Attachments

HR Officer JD - Maternity Cover Opens in new window (pdf, 604kB)