HR Advisor

Welcome to Hovis. We are the proud guardians of over 130 years of baking experience that make up our iconic and much-loved brand. We produce bread and bakery products created with Hovis goodness at the heart of each. We deliver around 1.3million loaves, every day of the week throughout the UK and Ireland, where we also make Mothers Pride and Ormo products.

We are 2,800 people working within 8 bakeries, 1 flour mill, and 2 regional distribution centres across the UK. Our success is a result of the hard work of our people; they are experts in their field whether it’s baking, manufacturing, logistics, engineering, or the many departments within the central functions team based in our head office in High Wycombe. We are a values-led business and expect our colleagues to live, breathe, and embed Quality, Accountability, and Trust into their ways of working.

**The role**:
Are you an experienced HR professional looking for your next big challenge?

Hovis Avonmouth has an exciting opportunity for a Senior HR Advisor who thrives in a fast-paced environment and is ready to make a significant impact. This role is site-based, Monday to Friday, with flexible working hours to help you maintain a healthy work/life balance.

At Hovis Avonmouth, you'll enjoy a unique blend of responsibilities in both food manufacturing and logistics. This role is perfect for someone who is either:

- Currently working at a senior HR level and seeking a new challenge.
- An HR advisor ready to take the next step in their career.

You will be joining our national HR team - this means opportunities for growth and development across various areas. You'll be involved in exciting projects that extend beyond Avonmouth, ensuring your professional experience is both diverse and enriching.

What you will do:

- Collaborate and Drive Strategy: Work alongside the HR Manager to align and execute People Strategies and Plans that enhance employee contributions to both short-term and long-term business objectives.
- Champion Change: Partner with the HR Manager to act as a catalyst for change, supporting initiatives like shared services implementation to streamline and improve processes.
- Train and Develop: Prepare engaging training materials, arrange and deliver impactful training sessions and coaching for staff. Take charge of the induction and onboarding program, ensuring new starters have a seamless and positive introduction to the company.
- Manage Employee Relations: Handle a high volume of employee relations (ER) cases from dismissal through to appeal, working closely with the HR Manager on more complex cases to ensure fair and effective resolutions.
- Foster Positive Relationships: Build and maintain effective, win-win relationships with employees and their representatives, such as union representatives, fostering an environment of open communication and high-quality service delivery.
- Support Health and Safety: Liaise with Occupational Health (OH) on long-term sickness and ill health assessments, and collaborate with the Site Safety Manager to ensure a safe and compliant workplace.
- Innovate HR Practices: Work as part of a cross-functional HR team to develop and enhance HR practices and processes, contributing to the overall effectiveness and innovation of the HR function, including the possibility of providing support to other Hovis sites as part of your ongoing development.
- Developing Talent: Assist in the ongoing development of our site HR Assistant, fostering growth and building a strong HR team.

**Ideal experiences / Qualifications / capabilities**:

- CIPD qualified or working towards
- A proactive approach to employee engagement and staff development
- Minimum 2 years experience ideally within a site based environment
- Strong knowledge of employment law
- Experience of managing disciplinary and grievance processes, up to and including dismissal, within a unionised environment
- Experience in a manufacturing OR Logistics environment

Desirable:

- Payroll experience
- SAP Time and attendance experience

**Why work for us and our benefits**:
At Hovis, we understand the importance of looking after our colleagues, so we provide a variety of benefits in addition to their salaries. The benefits we provide at Hovis are as varied as the people who receive them but they are offered with the intention of creating value to them personally over and above their salaries
- There is a range of colleague benefits available, which individuals can select based on their needs.
- Our benefits scheme is called Hovis Choice, which offers a variety of savings and cashback offers on day to day living and much more including eyecare vouchers, and a healthcare scheme to suit everyone. It also includes our Cycle to Work scheme where you can obtain a brand new bike at a significant saving
- We offer competitive annual leave entitlement and flexibility where possible in order to create a healthy work-life balance
- We celebrate loyalty with our generous long s