HR Operations and Wellbeing Lead

Welsh Parliament

Tŷ Hywel, Pierhead St, National Assembly For Wales, Cardiff CF10 5AL, UK

Hybrid

Expires: Expiring in less than 2 weeks

Part time

£49,026 - £58,756 per year

Job summary

Pattern of Working: 0.8 FTE, equating to 29.6 hours per week. Flexible working arrangements will be considered, subject to meeting the needs of the Senedd and its Members.

The Wellbeing and Operations Lead plays a pivotal role in ensuring that People Services operates effectively, consistently and in a way that actively promotes employee wellbeing across the organisation. The postholder provides strategic and operational leadership to the HR Operations and Wellbeing teams, driving high-quality service delivery while building capability, resilience and continuous improvement within those teams. The role has overall responsibility for the design and delivery of key operational and wellbeing projects, ensuring that policy, process and practice are aligned, evidence based and support a positive employee experience.

The post leads on major, organisation wide initiatives to improve efficiency, productivity and outcomes within People Services, including the development of systems such as occupational health provision, query management solutions and the use of AI enabled tools. Acting as the HR policy lead, the role provides oversight and coordination of cross organisational policy development, supports complex and sensitive casework investigations, and ensures clear, planned and timely HR communications. Through active engagement and consultation with Commission leaders, managers and external networks, the Wellbeing and Operations Lead ensures that People Services is responsive, compliant and well positioned to support organisational priorities.

Ultimately the role needs to ensure that the services provided by the team are proactive, with a continuous improvement ethos; customer focused; and efficient.

Job description

About the role:

The HR Operations and Wellbeing Lead provides senior professional leadership to the Wellbeing and HR Operations team. As well as Wellbeing and HR Operations, the People Services team comprises of Payroll, HR Systems and HR data/management information functions.

The post holder leads on complex programmes and provides expert consultancy to senior leaders and the HR Operations and Wellbeing teams. This role works closely with senior colleagues across HR and other service areas, influencing at senior level while remaining grounded in delivery reality, as well as in close partnership with the Head of People Services.

Core Responsibilities:

Strategic leadership

Lead the design and evolution of HR Operations and Wellbeing roadmaps, to ensure that projects and BAU work are identified annually and then continually reviewed. Ensure projects and BAU work is aligned to the People and Culture strategy and workforce needs .Work with the teams to ensure clear delivery roadmaps based on priorities and resource availability
Accountable for ensuring the HR Operations and Wellbeing teams deliver BAU and projects identified on the roadmap. Ensure there are clear expected outcomes and measures as to whether these have been achieved.
Act as a senior expert adviser / point of escalation for HR Operations (including complex casework) and Wellbeing queries and issues
Work with the teams to identify efficiencies and streamline process, either through utilising technological solutions, or developing clearer processes and supporting documents, to create capacity in the team and ensuring work is value added / meets customer needs
Develop KPIs for HR Operations to define expectations in key areas of service delivery, and then monitor the team against these

Key areas of responsibility

Lead major HR Operations and Wellbeing programmes with the focus or either driving efficiency and productivity gains, or managing risk. This will include leading on:
- The introduction of a new occupational health system /
- The introduction of a new query management system
- Identifying how AI can be utilised across the team
- The implementation of the Dignity and Respect framework
- HR Risk Champion – oversight of HR risks, working with other teams to ensure that risks are identified and up to date on the HR risk register
- Lead on HR Policy development: Personally responsible for reviewing and updating circa 5-10 policies per year, facilitating feedback and managing consultation processes to ensure these are up-to-date, accurate, reflect legislation, and reflect internal processes
- Overall responsibility for working with other members of HR to ensure that HR policies are up-to-date, accurate, reflect legislation, and reflect internal processes.

Provide guidance to others across the organisation to ensure compliance with policy governance procedures, and ensure policy updates are tracked centrally

Develop and deliver training on HR Operations policies

Support the development and delivery of the Wellbeing Strategy
Work with the Wellbeing manager (who has strategic responsibility for the Wellbeing Strategy) to ensure the Wellbeing Strategy aligns to HR Policies, HR Operations projects, and People and Culture strategy.
Work with the Wellbeing Manager to develop KPIs for Wellbeing to define expectations in key areas of service delivery, and then monitor the team against these
Escalation point for decision making on complex wellbeing and reasonable adjustment cases, taking into account advice and recommendation from the Wellbeing manager

People and professional leadership

Manage, coach and mentor direct reports, providing clear direction, professional challenge and oversight.
Set clear standards for delivery, ensuring work is pitched appropriately by grade and aligned to organisational need.
Working with the Head of People Services and Data and Insights Lead, develop and the People Services team, including chairing team meetings and supporting talent development, professional growth and succession planning within the team
Develop a CPD culture within the HR Operations and Wellbeing teams, ensuring the team is up to date with legislation
Have oversight for ensuring that People Services communications are managed effectively and in line with the HR communications schedule, working with others in the team to develop and publish communications in their own area of responsibility, including general communications to staff to reflect policy or process changes, projects and updates

Partnership and influence

Build strong partnerships with senior leaders and services to align HR Operations and Wellbeing initiatives with real organisational challenges.
Work in partnership with Trade Unions to engage and consult with them regarding new / evolving policies and initiatives
Present papers / facilitate discussion on key topics at Exec Board and Leadership Team
Work collaboratively across HR to ensure joined‑up people solutions.
Stay connected to external practice, benchmarking and professional networks to strengthen organisational capability.
Build relationships with external organisations, including other parliaments

Person specification

Job Specific criteria:

In-depth knowledge and experience of managing HR Operations ie complex casework / employee relations
Understanding and experience of managing employee wellbeing functions, initiatives and strategies in a large or complex organisation.
Strong consultancy and influencing skills with senior stakeholders.
Excellent written and analytical skills; experience drafting policies, and the ability to research and use data and insight to shape policy and strategy.
Proven ability to lead, coach and develop professional colleagues.

Desirable criteria:

The following qualities are not essential for this particular post but have been deemed as desirable. These will only be taken into account in the event of two (or more) candidates acquiring the same score at either application or interview stage.

Chartered CIPD status or equivalent professional accreditation.
Experience of working in a unionised workplace

Welsh language criteria:

The language skills for this post have been assessed as follows:

Listening: Understand most job related routine and non-routine discussions and instructions (Level 3)
Speaking: Able to hold an extended conversation with a fluent speaker on most job-related routine and non-routine matters (Level 3)
Reading: Understand most job-related routine and non-routine text when standard language is used (Level 3)
Writing: Able to write job-related routine and non-routine text (Level 3)

These skills will be assessed as part of the selection process.

For further information on the Welsh language levels, please visit our website.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £49,026, Welsh Parliament contributes £14,202 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

Learning and development tailored to your role
An environment with flexible working options
A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

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

Details of the Selection Process:

Candidates are required to complete an application form through our recruitment portal addressing the job specific and desirable criteria.

Closing Date for applications:

23:59 06 September 2026.

Your application must be submitted before midnight on the closing date.

You will be updated on your progress via the email address you first register with. Please check your Junk Mail and Spam folders to make sure you don’t miss any future correspondence.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Medical

Successful candidates will be expected to have a medical.

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

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 : Recruitment Team
Email : jobs@senedd.wales
Telephone : 03002007588

Salary range

£49,026 - £58,756 per year