Job title:Employee Relations and Policy Manager
Location: Wheathampstead (Head Office), with sometravel to Care Homes across country
About the role
Are you an experienced HR professional with a passion for employee relations, strong employment law knowledge and the ability to support managers in making confident, fair and consistent people-management decisions?
We are seeking an Employee Relations and Policy Manager to join our team and play a key role in strengthening HR practices across our growing portfolio of care homes.
Key responsibilities
- Employee relations: Provide expert advice and practical support on disciplinary, grievance, capability, performance, conduct and sickness absence matters, ensuring cases are managed fairly, consistently and in line with employment legislation and company policies.
- HR policies and procedures: Lead the development, review and implementation of HR policies, procedures, guidance documents and standard operating procedures across the care home portfolio.
- Management coaching and support: Build strong relationships with Home Managers and regional leaders, providing coaching, guidance and practical tools to strengthen management confidence and capability.
- Reporting and continuous improvement: Monitor employee relations trends, absence, turnover, policy compliance and case outcomes, using management information to identify improvements and reduce avoidable employment issues.
- Acquisitions and organisational change: Support the integration of newly acquired care homes, including the alignment of HR policies and processes, identification of employment risks, TUPE-related activities and organisational change initiatives.
- Partnership working: Collaborate with HR colleagues, operational leaders and other internal teams to ensure HR practices support staff wellbeing, resident safety and operational effectiveness.
About you
You will be a confident and experienced HR professional who combines sound technical knowledge with a practical, approachable and commercially aware style. You will be comfortable managing complex employee relations matters, advising senior stakeholders and influencing managers to achieve fair and consistent outcomes.
You will ideally have:
- Significant experience in employee relations and HR within a multi-site organisation.
- Strong working knowledge of UK employment law and ACAS guidance.
- Experience developing, reviewing and implementing HR policies and procedures.
- Excellent communication and report-writing skills, including experience preparing investigation reports and formal correspondence.
- A high level of professionalism, discretion and integrity when handling confidential and sensitive information.
- Flexibility to travel regularly between care homes and regional locations.
Desirable experience and qualifications include:
- CIPD Level 5 or Level 7 qualification, or equivalent relevant HR experience.
- Experience within the care home, health or social care sector.
- Understanding of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulatory framework and the relationship between people management, safe staffing and quality of care.
- Experience delivering management training and using HR information systems or employee relations case management platforms.
About Us
Welford Healthcare was founded in 2017 with the goal of building a boutique collection of quality care homes across the UK. Our strategy is to grow our business by acquiring mature care homes with quality foundations and strong potential for improvement and by investing in our people and our properties to ensure our homes are always inviting and homely. Whilst we are a growing business, we never lose sight of our primary and enduring purpose which is to provide good quality care for vulnerable adults. As we acquire new homes, we leverage our resources and expertise to ensure that the homes we run always have our residents’ wellbeing at their hearts.
Our senior leadership team has extensive experience of operating, opening and acquiring quality care homes with proven track records in regulatory compliance and running commercially successful businesses where meeting the needs and ensuring the happiness of our residents and our teams are the cornerstones of our approach.
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