Group People & Culture Advisor

Group People & Culture Advisor
Компания: Sanderson Design Group
Город: Loughborough
**Group People & Culture Advisor**
**Reports to:** Lead People Partner
**Location:** Loughborough, with travel to other UK sites as required
**Department:** People
**Hours:** 18 hours per week (part time), with flexibility over how these hours are distributed across the working week by mutual agreement.
**Role Overview:**
As Group People & Culture Advisor, you'll own the day-to-day People service for colleagues and managers across the Group — from the People inbox and Dayforce administration through to employee relations support, people data and onboarding — working alongside the Lead People Partner, who owns more complex and higher-risk casework and the strategic People agenda for the business areas you support.
This is a hands-on role at the heart of bringing our 'Work Beautiful' People strategy to life. You'll make sure the basics are right every time — accurate records, payroll deadlines met, policies applied fairly and consistently — while helping us improve how we work, get the most from Dayforce and our people data and shape an employee experience that reflects our One Company culture.
**About Us:**
Sanderson Design Group PLC is a luxury interior design house with more than 165 years of heritage, home to some of the most celebrated names in British design: Sanderson, Morris & Co., Zoffany, Harlequin, Clarke & Clarke and Scion. The Group also designs, manufactures and distributes Designers Guild products under an exclusive global licence. Our fabrics, wallpapers and paints are loved around the world, with North America representing our fastest-growing market. We proudly manufacture in our own UK facilities, Anstey in Loughborough and Standfast & Barracks in Lancaster, where traditional craftsmanship is combined with some of the most advanced digital printing technology in the industry.
Our purpose is to “bring the beautiful into people’s homes and lives”. We are custodians of one of the world’s largest fabric and wallpaper archives, comprising more than 75,000 documents dating back to the 16th century, which continue to inspire our designers today. Through a thriving international licensing programme, our designs extend far beyond interiors into categories including bedding, rugs and tableware. With around 500 colleagues across the Group, we are a destination for creative talent and ambitious people who want to shape the future of design-led brands.
**Responsibilities:**
**People Queries & Administration**
* Own the People inbox, responding to queries from across the business promptly and in line with agreed service levels, and routing specialist queries to the right member of the People team.
* Manage day-to-day lifecycle administration in Dayforce — new starters, contractual changes, family leave, absence updates and leavers — completing transactions accurately and within payroll cut-off dates, with minimal rework.
* Prepare offer letters, contracts and contractual change letters, and carry out right to work and other pre-employment checks in line with Home Office guidance.
* Support benefits enrolment and changes, ensuring employee and payroll information is accurately recorded and communicated.
**HR Systems & Data**
* Use Dayforce to pull accurate regular and ad hoc reports on headcount, turnover, absence and lifecycle activity, turning the data into clear trends and insight that help People Partners and managers make decisions.
* Support managers and employees to operate Dayforce confidently day to day — guiding them through self-service, approvals and workflows, and escalating system issues to the Dayforce super-user or support channel.
* Own the accuracy and integrity of employee data in Dayforce, running regular data-quality checks and audits and resolving discrepancies at source.
* Share feedback on how Dayforce is working for managers and colleagues, and support testing, user guides and adoption of new functionality as required.
* Handle employee data in line with UK GDPR, data retention and data protection requirements.
**Employee Relations & Absence Support**
* Advise line managers on lower-complexity employee relations matters, including disciplinary, grievance, capability and absence cases, in line with company policy, the Acas Code of Practice and employment law.
* Support investigations and formal meetings, including preparing letters and case packs and taking accurate notes.
* Support managers with sickness absence management, including return-to-work processes, absence trigger reviews and occupational health referrals.
* Keep clear, confidential case records and track cases to resolution, escalating higher-risk or complex matters to the Lead People Partner promptly.
**People Policy & Compliance**
* Advise on and communicate People policies and procedures across the Group, helping managers and colleagues understand and apply them consistently and fairly.
* Keep up to date with changes in employment legislation — including the Employment Rights Act 2025 reforms being phased in — and flag where policies, contracts or processes may need to be refreshed.
**Employee Experience, Projects & Learning**
* Coordinate onboarding so new colleagues have a positive first experience, understand our values and can access the benefits, tools and resources they need.
* Support offboarding, including exit interviews, and share themes that can improve retention.
* Contribute to People & Culture projects, change programmes, engagement and inclusion initiatives, and the recognition of milestones and success stories across the Group.
* Support the Learning & Development Manager by coordinating training sessions, tracking attendance and monitoring mandatory and compliance training completion, escalating gaps.
* Work closely with Payroll, Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, Reward & Benefits and line managers across all sites to deliver a joined-up People service.
**Skills & Experience:**
**Experience & Know-How**
* Experience in a generalist HR or People Advisor/Administrator role, ideally in a multi-site environment.
* Working knowledge of People processes across the employee lifecycle, including onboarding, employee relations, absence and offboarding.
* Sound understanding of UK employment law and good practice, with the confidence to apply it in day-to-day advice.
* Strong hands-on experience of Dayforce or a comparable cloud-based HRIS — processing lifecycle changes, managing workflows, maintaining data and building reports.
* Confident with HR data: able to spot data-quality issues, analyse trends and present clear, accurate reporting.
* Good Microsoft Office skills, particularly Excel (e.g. lookups, pivot tables) as well as Word and Outlook.
Desirable:
* Experience of supporting managers to use an HRIS, or of HRIS testing or process improvement.
* Experience supporting People projects such as engagement, inclusion or process improvement.
* Experience coordinating training and development activity.
**How You Work**
* Highly organised, able to manage competing priorities and meet fixed deadlines such as payroll cut-offs.
* Strong attention to detail and accuracy, especially with employee data and documentation.
* Discreet and trustworthy, handling confidential and sensitive information with professionalism.
* A clear, approachable communicator who builds credible relationships with colleagues and managers at all levels.
* Uses good judgement — knows when to resolve, when to advise and when to escalate.
* Curious and proactive about improving processes, systems and the employee experience.
**Qualifications:**
* CIPD Level 3 or above (or working towards), or equivalent professional experience.
**Values & Behaviours:**
* **Intrepid:** Provide clarity, encouragement and meaningful feedback to help us move forward with purpose and positivity.
* I**maginative:** Lead with curiosity, coach and encourage teams to be resourceful and think beyond the obvious to d