Field People Partner

Matalan is a leading UK and international omnichannel fashion and homeware retailer, on a mission to be the first choice for outstanding family value.

With a large store network in excess of 270 UK and international stores and an integrated e-commerce platform, Matalan is a trusted brand which puts its customer at the heart of its business and delivers unrivalled product choice and exceptional style and quality to 11 million loyal shoppers every year.

Matalan is famously committed to offering a compelling value focused fashion and home offering, that continues to help millions of UK household budgets go further.

In addition to competitive salaries, we also offer the below core benefits:

• 20% staff discount, which increases with length of service
• Thrive Recognition Scheme
• Wellbeing support provided by the Retail Trust
• Life Assurance
• Retail Rewards platform offering discounts for other retailers
• Pension Scheme
• Access to a wide range of career development
• Additional benefits may apply depending on your role and area of the business

People Expertise

• Solid generalist HR experience in a multi-site or operational environment, ideally within retail or similar.

• Confident in core people practices across the colleague lifecycle.

Coaching & Influence:

• Skilled at coaching and influencing managers at all levels, particularly at a regional and store level.

• Builds credibility quickly through practical support and trusted relationships.

Data & Insights:

• Confident using data to drive insight and action.

• Able to spot trends and take a proactive, solutions-focused approach.

Project management & Delivery:

• Able to manage competing priorities, work at pace and deliver effectively across regions.

• Confident in driving high-quality outcomes through strong planning and follow-through.

Effective communication:

• Clear and confident communicator who adapts their style for different audiences.

• Builds strong relationships through regular contact, listening and feedback.

As a People Field Partner, you'll lead the delivery of the people plan across multiple regions within retail, working closely with regional managers and store leaders.

You'll take ownership of key people activities, from talent and succession to engagement and capability, ensuring they're effectively embedded, action-oriented and aligned to store and regional objectives.

In this visible, hands-on role, you'll take a lead role in driving people initiatives, coaching leaders and using data and insights to shape local activity. You'll partner across a portfolio of stores and leaders, playing a central part in building high-performing inclusive teams that contribute to business success.

Key Responsibilities

People plan delivery:

• Lead the delivery of the people plan across your assigned regions, ensuring it aligns with operational priorities and supports performance.

• Act as a key partner to regional managers and store leaders – offering coaching, challenge and practical advice to embed people practices confidently.

• Take ownership for ensuring stores are set up for success with the right tools, guidance and people support; escalate where needed, and encourage problem-solving at a local level.

Talent and succession:

• Facilitate talent and succession planning conversations, ensuring leaders are identifying, developing and progressing talent with clear follow-up actions.

• Collaborate with TA and TD teams to strengthen internal talent pipelines and support regional capability needs.

• Take a lead role in ensuring talent activity results in clear movement and development outcomes.

Change and transformation:

• Lead the people element of change activity across your regions — including store refreshes, openings and operational change.

• Ensure leaders are prepared for change and equipped to maintain colleague engagement, capability and performance through transitions.

Learning & Capability

• Partner with Talent Development to deliver key learning programmes and build day-to-day manager confidence in core people practices.

• Take a proactive role in spotting capability gaps and shaping interventions at a regional or store level.

• Coach leaders through practical people challenges and support their development as people managers.

Culture and Engagement:

• Champion the colleague experience by helping stores take meaningful action on engagement insights.

• Support store leadership teams to create inclusive, positive team environments where colleagues feel valued.

• Encourage continuous feedback and improvement by coaching leaders on engagement and culture ownership.

People Insights:

• Use data (e.g. turnover, absence, ER trends, engagement) to highlight themes and opportunities for improvement across your regions.

• Work with store leaders to identify root causes and take targeted, proactive action.

Talent Acquisition:

• Support store recruitment and onboarding, working with the TA team to ensure alignment with store needs and the Matalan experience.

Reward and Compensation:

• Lead annual pay reviews across regions, ensuring alignment with benchmarking and market trends.

• Make pay decisions that balance competitiveness in the market with being cost-conscious.

• Use benchmarking data to guide fair and consistent pay practices across all regions.

Employee Relations:

• Stay connected to ER activity across your regions, using themes and trends to shape preventative coaching and capability building.

• Partner with People Advisors to ensure ER cases are well managed and lessons inform future practice.

Collaboration and Communication:

• Work closely with People team colleagues (e.g. TD, TA, Reward, DE&I) to ensure joined-up support and identify shared opportunities across retail.

• Collaborate with your People Delivery Partner counterpart in the other region to align on approach and share learning.

KPIs and Measures of Success:

• Effectively delivery of people plan activity across all assigned regions.

• Improved employee engagement and retention.

• Effective implementation of business change initiatives.

• Strong succession pipelines and talent mobility.

• Achievement of agreed annual people KPI's.