Senior HR Policy and Employee Relations Lead

Job summary

We are MHCLG

Are you passionate about developing people policies through meaningful consultation and constructive Trade Union engagement?

Can you navigate complex employee relations issues while delivering policy change that is legally robust and operationally effective?

If so, we have an exciting opportunity for a Senior HR Policy Lead to join our team at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and we'd love to hear from you!

You will co-lead the review and modernisation of our HR policy framework, working closely with Trade Unions and departmental stakeholders throughout the policy lifecycle. From early engagement and consultation through to implementation and embedding change, you will provide expert advice and leadership to ensure policies are fair, practical and aligned with organisational needs. Your work will help create a policy framework that is accessible, trusted and supports consistent decision-making across the department.

Job description

As the Senior HR Policy Lead your responsibilities will include:

• Leading the end-to-end review, development and maintenance of MHCLG HR policies to ensure they are fit for purpose, accessible, legally compliant, and aligned to best practice, with particular regard to Government People Group (GPG) model policies.
• Leading and managing Trade Union engagement and consultation on all policy reviews and issues, ensuring timely, constructive and meaningful involvement in policy development and change, balancing the needs of your stakeholders.
• Acting as the subject matter expert and single point of contact (SPOC) for HR policy queries, providing authoritative advice and working closely with casework and employee relations teams to ensure consistent application.
• Building and maintaining strong working relationships with a wide range of key stakeholders, including senior leaders, HR Business Partners, operational HR teams, and Government People Group where required.
• Working collaboratively with HR Shared Services to ensure that operational processes, guidance and systems accurately reflect policy intent and are practical to implement.
• Navigating and resolving complexities across formal policy documents, intranet guidance and the employee handbook, ensuring clarity, consistency and alignment across all sources.
• Producing and quality-assuring Equality Impact Assessments (EqIAs) and related documentation to support policy development and demonstrate due regard to equality duties.
• Providing clear, well-structured and accessible policy documentation and guidance, ensuring content meets accessibility standards and supports effective decision-making.

Person specification

To be successful in the role you will need to be resilient and collaborative, and be able to demonstrate you have experience with drafting and reviewing HR Policies and leading on Trade Union consultation and engagement.You will need to operate with a high degree of autonomy and professional judgement, while also working collaboratively as a senior leader within the HR function to drive continuous improvement.

• HR Policy Development: Demonstratable experience in developing and implementing HR policies

• Employee relations expertise: Experience working closely and confidently with trade union representatives and finding constructive and effective ways to manage through contentious scenarios, ideally in a HR policy environment

• Engaging HR Products: Proven experience in developing and implementing engaging user-friendly HR products that support effective people management and drive employee engagement.

• Working collaboratively: Strong interpersonal skills, with a proven ability to build trusted relationships and work in partnership across HR teams and wider stakeholders to deliver shared outcomes.

• Aligning organisational practice and context to your work: Ensuring products, policies and processes are fit for the organisational environment, tailoring them to user needs and requirements so that they can be used and applied effectively.

• Employment law and HR best practice: Proficiency in interpreting and applying employment law, with up-to-date knowledge of developments in HR best practices.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £60,230, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes £17,448 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).

At MHCLG we offer many benefits that range from tailored career pathways and flexible working to MyLifestyle Staff Benefits Scheme, Childcare Vouchers, and Cycle to Work Schemes. For more information, please click here.

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

Application and Selection
The application process will be split into 2 stages, testing the following Success Profiles:

Behaviours , Experience , Strengths

Stage 1: Sift

• Behaviour: Leadership: Tell us about a time you've responded to challenge and conflicting pressures when delivering a new/changed HR policy.

• Behaviour: Communicating and Influencing: Tell us about a time when you've implemented a change to HR policies in response to legislation or employment law. How did you make sure the change was understood by all users and communicated effectively - whilst making sure the policy was accurate.

• Experience: (Lead Element): Tell us about a time when you've led on a new HR policy or a policy change when you couldn't meet all stakeholder views/expectations and outline

There is a 250-word limit per question.

When writing your application, remember:

• the assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially

• do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers

• if talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!)

Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors.

In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift using the lead behaviour listed in the advert. Candidates