Employee Relations Partner - People Services

Employee Relations (ER) Partner

Location: Hybrid – Attached to Solihull (Expectation to travel UK wide)
Full Time, Permanent (37.5 hour per week)
Competitive salary plus benefits

Make a difference every day

At Serco, we deliver essential public services that make a real difference to people’s lives. As an Employee Relations Partner, you’ll play a key role in ensuring that Serco operates ethically, lawfully, and fairly across our UK business.

You’ll be the go-to expert for all matters relating to employment law, managing Employment Tribunal and ACAS Early Conciliation activit. You will be responsible for providing commercially focused advice to managers and People & Culture colleagues. This is an exciting opportunity to make a tangible impact by guiding fair outcomes, protecting Serco’s reputation, and supporting our people.

What you’ll be doing:

• Managing all ACAS Early Conciliation and Employment Tribunal (ET) activity efficiently and cost-effectively.
• Conducting advocacy at Employment Tribunal hearings (preliminary and final) - where required.
• Prioritising and assessing incoming claims, providing timely risk evaluations and advising stakeholders on prospects and strategy.
• Drafting responses to ET claims, devising case management and defence strategies, and identifying key risk areas.
• Preparing documentation for hearings, including witness statements, tribunal bundles, counter schedules of loss, and skeleton arguments.
• Liaising professionally and effectively with external stakeholders such as ACAS, unions, solicitors, and barristers.
• Advising on settlement agreements, including drafting and negotiation, ensuring outcomes are expedient and cost-effective.
• Providing guidance on complex internal employee relations cases and contributing to proactive learning initiatives to reduce ER risk.
• Providing timely briefings on employment law updates and case law implications, supporting the design of relevant training materials.

What you will bring:

• Strong knowledge of UK employment law and data protection.
• While a degree in employment law or a related discipline is an advantage, we’re equally interested in those who bring proven, practical experience in employment law and employee relations.
• CIPD qualified or working towards
• Proven experience advising on all aspects of employment law, ideally within an in-house environment.
• Experience managing Employment Tribunal cases and working with ACAS conciliations.
• Strong negotiation and advocacy skills, with the confidence to represent the business externally.
• Proactive and solutions-focused, with a high level of attention to detail and commercial awareness.

Additional information

• This role requires regular travel to attend meetings, hearings, and other events across the UK.

Why Serco

• Meaningful work – you’ll help ensure that our people are treated fairly and that our operations uphold the highest ethical and legal standards.
• A supportive, collaborative culture where you can influence real change.
• Opportunities to develop your expertise in employment law, ER strategy, and case management.
• Flexible and varied work – including involvement in hearings, projects, and people initiatives.

What we offer:

• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays.
• Annual leave purchase scheme.
• Up to 6% contributory pension scheme
• Flexible working options.
• Serco discounts which include cinema, merlin entertainment and online shopping discounts, and discounts on mobile phone plans and leisure centre memberships.
• A range of benefits to support the health and wellbeing of you and your family such as Employee Assistance Programme, Simply Health Cash Plans, and more.
• A wealth of career development training to suit your future aspirations. These range from role specific training, leadership coaching, formal study and much more to support you to build your career with Serco.
• A safe and supportive culture.
• A company passionate about diversity and inclusion.

About Serco
At Serco, not only is the nature of the work we do important, everyone has an important role to play, from caring for vulnerable people to managing complex public services.  We are a team of 50,000 people responsible for delivering essential public services around the world in areas including defence, transport, justice, immigration, healthcare and citizen services. We are innovators, committed to redesigning and improving public services for the benefit of everyone.

By joining Serco you will have unlimited access to our Global Employee Networks – SercoInspire (Gender), SercoEmbrace (Multicultural), SercoUnlimited (Disability) and In@Serco (LGBT & Networks). Serco Employee Networks, led by colleagues who are passionate about diversity, inclusion and belonging. 

Apply
Please click on the apply button to complete your application. Occasionally we receive a large volume of applications for our roles and when that happens we sometimes bring the closing date forward, so please apply promptly to avoid disappointment. 

At Serco, we see people first and foremost for their performance and potential. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive organisation that supports the needs of all. As such we will make reasonable adjustments at interview through to employment for our candidates and strongly encourage applications from a diverse candidate pool. We are open to discussions around flexibility and flexible working. We operate a hybrid work structure in many of our business areas. We are proudly Disability Confident Leader employers and holder of the Gold Inclusive Employer Standard. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job will be given the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities at an interview.  For help with your application please contact 0345 010 4000.
 

At Serco we support fair access to employment for those with unspent criminal convictions through the ‘Ban the Box’ pledge (some may be exempt due to the nature of the role and the security clearance required). Please contact our recruitment team directly on 0345 010 4000 to discuss.