Litigation & Labour Relations

Employee Relations casework

• Provide support & guidance to Managers & Supervisors• Ensuring that policies & procedures are compliant with employment legislation• Review, recommend & implement employment policies so that they meet legislative requirements & support business goals• Ensuring & providing best practice advice, supporting managers & employees in all HR issues/policies either directly or via HRBPs• Providing support to managers in cases of capability & conduct concerns up to & including dismissals where necessary• Working with Head of HR to deliver business results• Working with Head of HR to establish an annual set of HR objectives, which are then planned & delivered to meet customer expectations• Delivery of full range of HR processes & procedures specialist HR skills, knowledge & competence• Responsible as the lean representative for the department & embraces lean tools to support business process improvements• Ensuring that the HR team have processes outlined & that absences are covered to guarantee a consistent service to both the various managers & employees• Deputise for the Head of HR in managing the team & acting as key interface with local trade union representatives where appropriate.

• Responsible for the implementation and delivery of the ER strategy, ensuring best practice and compliance across all areas of the business and ensuring that it supports the overall HR strategy. • Developing effective relationships within the business to help promote good employee relations across the organisation and to clearly understand and promote the culture of the business. • Develop and maintain productive and collaborative relationships with employees, managers, suppliers and other third parties demonstrating professional credibility at all times and providing an excellent ER service to the business. • Interact with employees and managers to provide advice, direction and guidance on all issues relating to employee relations in an unbiased and consistent manner, ensuring that the company operates within appropriate employment law at all times. • Develop and deliver a suite of Manager’s tools and learning to enable managers to be competent, confident and self-sufficient in managing ER / people issues, to improve organisational effectiveness and minimise conflict • Train, coach and guide managers in the management of employee relations issues including poor performance, disciplinary, grievance and absence management issues, ensuring that accurate records are maintained throughout.• Support the HR Director in the management of restructures, acquisitions, TUPE transfers, offshore projects, internal audits, legislative changes etc by producing the required information in the planning phase, producing consultation documentation and communication and supporting employee meetings, ensuring that the processes are managed effectively for both the employees and the business. • Ensure that company policies and associated procedures are developed, kept up to date with changes in legislation, support best practice in people management and are communicated, implemented effectively and complied with throughout the organisation.

My key achievements included: • Introducing new HR policies on absence, poor performance, conduct and grievance & complaints• Setting up and holding monthly workshops with staff managers to share best practice and train them on aspects of people management and leadership• Individually coaching and mentoring Business Managers and Engineering Managers to lead their teams to produce better performance measured against KPI’s such as Lost Mileage.• Completed cross functional reviews into each Business Unit making recommendations on how to improve Business performance.• Created manpower plans for each bus depot, which calculated when managers needed to recruit new drivers based on historical data on staff turnover. This in turn led to improved turnover rates in each depot.• Reviewed individual manager’s caseloads each week providing advice and guidance on how to deal with each staffing issue.• Supported pay negotiations throughout the Operating Company and took the lead on all aspects of Industrial relations with both Unite and RMT Trade Unions.• Provided written guidance for managers on issues that were commonly being referred to HR for advice.• Supported and encouraged local managers to hold regular informal meetings with staff to hear their concerns and provide information to them.• Created an Engagement strategy where each individual manager committed to make 2 personal changes, be measured and have progress reported back to the Regional Board.• Led on all Employment Tribunal case management and TUPE activity.• Negotiated and introduced new driver contracts into each Business delivering improvements on driver efficiency.• Supported each Business Manager to reach a formal agreement on union time off in each of their depots.

Employee Engagement:• Led on the successful annual engagement survey & ensured that identified actions were met through ensuring actions were allocated to the appropriate levels within the organisation.Employee Relations:• Ensured that meaningful management information on grievance cases, organisational performance against diversity, engagement & learning strategies & operational performance was shared & discussed with employees through a variety of different methods. Equality & Diversity:• Carried out Equality audits & equality proofed all HR policies & processes, such as performance management, absence, recruitment and training.• Led on ensuring that the organisation was externally benchmarked on its diversity performance by a number of external organisations such as the Employers Forum for Age/Disability/Religion, Stonewall, RNID, etc & that we exceeded the standards set by these organisations.• Designed & implemented an equality impact assessment (EIA) toolkit to ensure greater clarity, support and simplification of the process and included a governance structure to ensure legal compliance.Industrial Relations:• Designed & implemented a revised facilities agreement with our recognised trade unions, which reduced costs by 50% and linked the allocated time to pay bill & headcount costs.Social Responsibility:• Designed & implemented a volunteering policy ensuring that our employees could receive paid time off to do charitable work or become actively involved within society such as being a School Governor, Magistrate, retained fire-fighter, etc.Written & Oral Communication:• Provided written & oral briefings & presentations to Government Ministers and developed business cases & strategies for tackling high levels of absence, low levels of staff engagement & potential areas of disproportionate impact to staff, such as improving how we communicated & collected diversity data.

Led Well-being programme by:• Raising the profile of well-being within CLG• Establishing a working group membership and agreed terms of reference.• Setting up a programme board and agreeing a strategic plan for action.• Developing and publicising a well-being events calendar• Leading work on stress by working with the HSE to establish an action plan measured against the HSE StandardsReviewed Trade Union Facility time to take account of best practice and Cabinet Office guidelines:• Phase one; agreed facility time bids for 2008/9 and put in place a system to record time.• Carried out Phase two of the review of facility time allocation in line with Cabinet Office best practice recommendations and review use of 100% facility time posts.• Issued guidance to line managers managing TU representativesDeveloped and maintained effective working relationships with Trade Unions by:• acting as first point of contact for TU issues; • monitoring and managing TU budgets and facility time; • managing, monitoring and reporting on industrial action to deadlines;• Provide timely responses to trade union requests as appropriate. Developed and advised the business and HR colleagues on:• HR Policies.• Pay negotiations and pay policy.• Performance management and Equality & Diversity.• Defending cases at Employment Tribunal including preparing case papers and ET bundles.