Head of Employee Relations, Policy & Safeguarding

Head of Employee Relations, Policy & Safeguarding

18 month Fixed Term Contract

I am delighted to be supporting a prestige and iconic organisation in the world of Performing Arts to appoint a Head of Employee Relations, Policy & Safeguarding.

Reporting to the Chief People Officer, this is a critical role shaping how the organisation handles its most sensitive and high-risk people matters.

You’ll bring structure, pace and credibility to employee relations, ensuring a consistent, fair and legally robust approach, while strengthening early resolution and leadership capability.

Alongside leading complex casework and industrial relations, you’ll own employment policy and governance frameworks, ensuring they are practical, compliant and support effective management. You’ll also provide oversight of safeguarding and deliver clear insight on organisational risk and trends.

Key Responsibilities

This is a senior leadership role that brings together employee relations, industrial relations, policy and safeguarding into one clear, organisation-wide agenda. You’ll set direction, oversee the most complex issues, and ensure a consistent, high-quality approach to how people matters are managed.

You’ll lead the employee relations framework end-to-end – balancing risk and fairness while improving early resolution, strengthening manager capability, and reducing repeat issues.

You’ll also shape the organisation’s industrial relations approach, building constructive relationships with trade unions and supporting senior leaders through consultation and negotiation.

Alongside this, you’ll own policy and governance, ensuring frameworks are practical, compliant and support effective decision-making, while providing oversight of safeguarding and visibility of organisational risk.

In practice, this includes:

• Leading employee relations strategy and oversight of complex cases
• Driving early resolution and improving manager capability
• Managing trade union engagement and collective processes
• Owning employment policy, governance and contracts
• Overseeing safeguarding within the workforce
• Monitoring risk, identifying trends and informing leadership decisions

About You

You are an experienced and credible employee relations leader who has operated at scale, navigating complex unionised and fast-paced environments where judgement, pace and consistency really matter. You bring a deep understanding of UK employment law, but more importantly, you know how to apply it pragmatically – balancing legal risk with commercial realities and organisational priorities.

You will have experience shaping policy, designing governance, or improving how cases are managed, you focus on creating frameworks that work in practice and build confidence across the organisation.

Just as importantly, you care about building capability. You look beyond individual cases to identify patterns and root causes, and you work closely with leaders and HR colleagues to strengthen early intervention, improve decision-making and reduce unnecessary escalation.

This role suits a commercially minded individual with experience of working in unionised or multi-stakeholder environments at a senior level. Above all, you bring sound judgement, credibility and the ability to lead with both authority and empathy.

Salary: £90,000

Contract: 18 month Fixed Term Contract

Location: London

Hybrid working model: 3 days in office

The SR Group (UK) Limited is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.