HR Advisor - Salterns Academy Trust bei Portsmouth City Council Enterprise

HR ADVISOR

Salary: Band 7 £31,067 - £35,235 

Contract: Permanent 

Hours: 37 hours per week/52 weeks per year                                 

Are you a people-first professional with a passion for delivering a first-class customer service to drive HR excellence? We are looking for a driven HR Advisor who’s ready to make a difference and bring expertise to our central HR team. In this pivotal role, you will deliver high-quality, centralised support to our Leaders and employees across the Trust, playing a key role in how we manage, support, and empower our people.

What’s on offer: 

• We provide a Trust team who is inclusive, inspirational, and supportive. 
• Development with continuous training for a future in HR.
• Evolving and forward-thinking HR department. 
• A range of benefits to support colleagues when they need support. 

Core skills we are looking for to succeed in the role

HR expertise: You will bring solid generalist HR experience, with a strong background in employee relations and case management. 

Communication & influence: You will have excellent written and verbal communication skills and feel confident engaging with stakeholders at all levels to build trust and drive meaningful outcomes.

Organisation & detail: You will know how to prioritise, stay organised, and juggle multiple tasks. With a sharp eye for detail, you will spot the small things that make a big difference.

Teamwork & initiative: You are a collaborative team player with a proactive mindset, ready to roll up your sleeves, bring the energy, and support wherever it is needed.

Tech savvy: You are comfortable using MS Office, especially Excel and PowerPoint, to present data and ideas in a clear, compelling way. You will have experience using an HRIS system.

Problem solving & customer focus: You are a logical thinker who thrives on solving challenges using relevant and accurate information, and you are passionate about delivering great service with a people-first approach.

Listener and enabler: You will listen to people to understand situations and concerns and enable people to make decisions rather than be reliant. You are objective and remain impartial. 

Overview of what you will be doing:

• Provide centralised expert advice and guidance to Leaders on a wide range of employee relations matters including disciplinary, grievance, capability, absence. Ensuring fairness and alignment with employment law and company policies.
• Deliver centralised HR support by building trusted relationships, maintaining consistency in approach and collaborating closely with the People Director.
• Attend and support formal hearings (disciplinary, grievance, capability) as the HR representative, ensuring due process is followed and outcomes are documented appropriately.
• Develop your skills and expertise by contributing to HR related projects and initiatives in line with the wider People Strategy.
• Ensure the school you are allocated is complaint in all aspects of employment in the end-to-end employment lifecycle. 
• Support organisational change activity including restructures, role design and redundancy, preparing supporting documentation and guiding Leaders, unions and employees through each stage.
• Contribute and support the People Director review and continuous improvement of HR policies, procedures and templates, ensuring alignment with current legislation and best practice.
• Complete end to end recruitment and ensure KCSIE compliance.
• Prepare reports and analyse HR data to identify trends, risks and opportunities for improvement as required, escalate findings to the People Director.
• Provide coaching to Leaders on HR policies and best practice people management, building confidence and capability in handling employee matters effectively as required.
• Ensure compliance with Trust HR policies, values and guidelines and other relevant standards/ regulations at all times.

Qualifications and experience

• CIPD level 3 or above.
• HRIS system use (ideally iTrent (MHR) but not essential)
• 1 years’ experience of working in a HR Department in either a HR Officer or HR Advisor role

How to Apply

Please complete an application form and cover letter detailing how you can deliver the core skills to [email protected].

Important information

The Salterns Academy Trust and is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.  We will ensure that all our recruitment and selection practices reflect this commitment. 

All successful candidates will be subject to Disclosure and Barring checks along with other relevant employment checks including an online check. 

Some forms of employment, occupations and professions are exempted from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. 

Working within a School is exempted from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. 

You are applying for a role that is eligible for an enhanced DBS check and access to the barred list and if shortlisted for interview you will be required to complete the relevant self-declaration and disclosure form and taking into account the offences that are protected or filtered declare:

• All unspent convictions and conditional cautions.
• All spent convictions and adult cautions that are not protected (i.e., that are not filtered out) as defined by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (as amended in 2020).   
• If you have been barred from working with Children and/or Adults at risk.

The DBS check will reveal both spent and unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands and final warnings, and any other information held by local police that’s considered relevant to the role. Any information that is “protected” under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 will not appear on a DBS certificate.

The successful candidate will then be asked to complete an application for the relevant Disclosure and Barring Service check or if subscribed to the update service provide the necessary details to allow a check to be made.

The amendments to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (2013 and 2020) provides that when applying for certain jobs and activities, certain convictions and cautions are considered ‘protected’. This means that they do not need to be disclosed to employers, and if they are disclosed, employers cannot take them into account.

Guidance about whether a conviction or caution should be disclosed can be found on the Ministry of Justice website.

Guidance on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Exceptions Order 1975 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The filtering rules were updated on 28 November 2020 as follows:

• warnings, reprimands, and youth cautions will no longer be automatically disclosed on a DBS certificate.
• the multiple conviction rule has been removed, meaning that if an individual has more than one conviction, regardless of offence type or time passed, each conviction will be considered against the remaining rules individually, rather than all being automatically disclosed.